THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


V 


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http://www.archive.org/details/fiftyyearslondonOOyate 


Fifty  Years  of  London  Life 


MEMOIRS 


OF  A 


MAN  OF  THE  WORLD 


By  EDMUND  YATES 


"Much  have  I  seen  and  known:  cities  of  men 
And  manners,  climates,  councils,  governments 
And  drunk  delight  of  battle  with  my  peers" 

Tennysos's  Ulysses 


NEW   YORK 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    FRANKLIN    SQUARE 

18  8  5 


EDMUND  YATES'S  NOVELS. 


BLACK  SHEEP.    8vo,  Paper,  40  cents. 

DR.  WAINWRIGHT'S  PATIENT.    8vo,  Paper,  30  cents. 

KISSING  THE  ROD.     8vo,  Paper,  40  cents. 

LAND  AT  LAST.     8vo,  Paper,  40  cents. 

WRECKED  IN  PORT.    8vo,  Paper,  35  cents. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  Nkw  Yohk. 

J^*  Ant/  of  the  above  works  sent  by  matt,  postage  prepaid^  to  any  part 
of  the  United  States,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


TO 

MY  WIFE 

MY  CONSTANT  COMPANION,  MY  WISEST  COUNSELLOR 
MY   BEST   FRIEND 

(j;l)is  jBook  is  JHebicateb 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  the  product  of  a  good  memory,  a  collec- 
tion of  interesting  letters  from  well-known  persons,  part- 
ly inherited,  partly  formed  by  myself,  and  a  few  diaries, 
kept  in  a  vague  and  desultory  fashion. 

Whether  it  was  or  was  not  worth  writing  will  soon  be 
known:  I  thought  it  was,  and  I  knew  that  no  one  could 
write  it  so  well  as  myself.  Neither,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
is  there  any  reason  why  its  publication  should  be  de- 
ferred until  after  my  death.  I  have  said  in  it  nothing 
which  I  am  ashamed  of,  and  I  do  not  think  I  have  said 
anything  absolutely  harsh  of  any  person,  alive  or  dead. 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  comes  fittingly  from  me  now, 
when  I  am  giving  up  my  London  habitation  and  my 
London  habits.  When  Dr.  Johnson  said  that  a  man  who 
was  tired  of  London  must  be  tired  of  life,  because  Lon- 
don contained  all  that  made  life  agreeable,  he  uttered  a 
sentence  more  epigrammatic  than  truthful.  Thirty  years' 
experience  has  taught  me  what  London  can  and  cannot 
give ;  and  there  comes  a  time  of  life  when  fresh  air,  sun- 
shine, early  hours,  and  a  minimum  of  convivial  tempta- 
tion  are  important  elements   as  regards   happiness   and 


viii  PREPACE. 

health.  To  "keep  touch"  of  London  is  always  necessary; 
to  keep  house  in  it  after  one  has  lost  youth,  and  what 
youth  brings,  is,  to  my  thinking,  unadvisable. 

Brighton  in  the  winter  and  the  Upper  Thames  in  the 
summer  are  good  enough  for,  at  all  events,  one 

Man  of  the  Would. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD. 
1831. 

Birth. — Father's  Family. — Dr.  Yates. — Uncles. — My  Father :  At  Charter- 
house; in  the  Commissariat;  Amateur  Acting;  Meeting  with  the  Elder 
Mathews ;  his  Imitations  ;  Personal  Appearance ;  his  Portraits. — My 
Father  as  an  Actor. — He  goes  into  Partnership  with  Terry. — Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott's  Letter  of  Advice. — My  Motlier :  Her  Family ;  her  Portrait ; 
Charles  Dickens's  Admiration  and  Regard  for  her. — My  Christening: 
Letter  from  Theodore  Hook ;  My  Godfathers  ;  Hook's  Joke.  —  Our 
Place  of  Residence. — The  Adelphi  Theatre. — Adelphi  Dramas. — Adap- 
tations of  Dickens's  Books ;  John  Forster  Thereon ;  Charles  Dickens 
on  "Nickleby"  at  the  Adelphi;  Dickens  Proposes  to  Dramatize  "Oliver 
Twist." — 0.  Smith. — My  Father's  Correspondents  :  Dr.  Mnginn,  Edmund 
Kean,  Miss  Jane  Porter,  Miss  Mitford,  Count  d'Orsay,  Miss  Pardoe. — 
A  Child's  Recollections :  The  Elder  Mathews,  Tlieodore  Hook,  Lord  A. 
Paget,  the  Giant,  "  The  Gnome  Fly,"  James  and  Horace  Smith,  Ains- 
worth,  Bunn,  Braham,  Three  Charming  Actresses. — Tlie  Duke  of  Well- 
ington,—O'Connell.— Listen. — Visitors  at  the  Adelphi  House  .     Page  1 

CHAPTER  n. 

YOUTH    AND   EDUCATION. 

isse-iSiT. 

My  First  Teacher. — My  Grandmother. — An  Unprofitable  Engagement. — 
Struggle  for  Novelty. —  Sam  Warren. —  Buckstone's  Dramas. —  Buck- 
stoue'a  Prices. — Fees  Paid  Nowadays.— My  Preparatory  School.— Preju- 
dice against  Actors. — The  Church  and  the  Stage.— Boys'  Thirst. — My 
Grandfather :  Happy  Days  with  him. —  Low  Tastes. —  Newspapers  of 
those  Days. — Spring-heeled  Jack. — Noble  Escapades. — Notorious  Mur- 
derers.—  Story-telling. —  Snuffers,  Rush-lights,  and  Tinder-boxes. —  Uni- 
forms of  Police,  Private  Soldiers,  and  Postmen. — Fashionable  Costume 
of  the  Period. — Vanished ! — Cabs,  Omnibuses,  and  Stage-coaches. — Why 
Shave? — Chimney-sweeps.- Changes  in  London  Streets. — The  Farring- 
don  Range  and  Mountain-pass. — Ichabod. — I  go  to  Highgate  School. — 


X  CONTENTS. 

Where  I  "  Board." — A  Great  Character. — My  Father's  last  Illness ;  **  The 
Ruling  Passion." —  Mr.  Macready's  Letter. —  My  Father's  Death  ;  his 
Funeral;  Newspaper  Comments;  his  Character. —  Resting. —  "Robs- 
perry." — An  Old-fashioned  Pedagogue. — My  Studies. — My  School-fel- 
lows.— Charles  Lamb's  Book. — T.  E.  Gahagan. — Other  School-fellows. 
— Prize-day. — What  will  Become  of  me  ? — To  go  to  Germany. — We 
Start;  en  Voyage. —  At  Diisseldorf. —  How  I  Learned  German. —  The 
Artists. — Freedom. — Progress. — English  Settlers. — No  Christmas  Din- 
ner.— American  Settlers. — The  Kneipe. — A  Practical  Joke. — Lord  Clan- 
ricarde's  Kindness. — I  Begin  Life  in  Earnest Page  19 

CHAPTER  m. 

EARLY  OATS  IN   TH£   POST-OFFICE. 

1847-1865. 

Small,  but  Certain. — Happy  Days  at  St.  Martin's. — My  First  Appearance. 
— The  Chief  Clerk. — No  Fun  now. — A  Practical  Joker. — The  Bananas. 
— A  Wonderful  Cure. — "  Reported." — Rowland  Hill. — A  Cure  for  Ex- 
cessive Animal  Spirits. — My  Omnibus. — A  Dangerous  Accomplishment. 
— John  Strange  Baker :  What  he  Taught  me. — James  Kenney. — Colonel 
Maberly  :  His  Peculiarities  ;  how  he  Transacted  Business. — Storm-warn- 
ings.— "  Are  ye  Williams  ?" — Assisting  the  Surveyor. — Deserting  my 
Post. — Lord  Clanricarde's  Kindness. — Introducing  the  P.M.G. — "  The 
Bo'sun." — Lord  Hartington. — A  Tyrannical  Old  Gentleman. — A  Dis- 
agreeable Job.— The  Confidential  Butler. — "Old  Ben  Stanley."— The 
Turning  of  the  Worm. — I  Show  Fight. — Sir  Rowland's  Sympathy. — 
Good  for  the  Messenger. — "  In  Charge :"  The  Journey  ;  the  Two  Cour- 
7-iers ;  on  Board;  the  Voyage. —  Lord  Lyons. —  Trollope's  Letter. —  To 
Cairo. — An  Egyptian  Fair. — Egyptian  Convicts. — Lights  of  the  Harem. 
— I  Arrive  at  Shepherd's. — A  Restless  Night. — Homeward  Bound. — To 
Hamlnirg. — 111. — Genial  Mr.  Tilley. — Luncheons. — Cliop-houscs. — Grati- 
tude "  to  Scale." — City  Refectories. — "Alton  Ale-houses." — Penny  Steam- 
boats.— Popular  Notions  of  our  Work. — Small  Salaries. — Sympathetic 
Colonel  Maberly. — Nearly  Lost  to  England! — The  Commission  of  In- 
quiry    66 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Tin;    A.MISKMENT3   OF    MT   YOUTH. 

1847-1852. 

In  the  Alpha  Road. — Mr.  Edmund  Byng :  His  Liking  for  Me ;  his  Din- 
ners.— " Jim"  Macdonald. — John  Cooper. — The  Cabman's  Triumph. — 
The  Baron. — Almack's. — Dancing  Diversions. — Tiie  Adelaide  Gallery. 
— The  Polytechnic. — Laurent's  Casino. — Tiie  Holborn  Casino. — Mott'a 
and  Weippcrt's. — Vauxhall  Gardens:  Ainu.seriients  there;  too  dear. — 
Cremorne. — The  Coliseum. — A  Small  Audience. — The  Cyclorama. — The 
Diorama. — "The  Overland  Route." — Binford's  Panoramas. — The  Chi- 
nese Junk. — Celebrities  in   the    Park:    I-ady  Bleasington  ;    D'Orsay ; 


CONTENTS.  xi 

Louis  Napoleon  ;  Beauties  and  Beaux. — Park  Riders. — Park  Wliipa. — 
Social  and  Political  Celebrities. — Eating-houses. — Foreign  Restaurants. 

—  Berthollini's. — "Slap-bangs."  —  City  Taverns. — West  End  Restau- 
rants. —  A  Revelation.  —  "  Simpson's." —  Imitations. —  Fish  Dinners. — 
Greenwich  Dinners.  —  Richmond  Dinners.  —  Supper-houses.  —  Oyster- 
houses. —  Night-houses. —  The  Blue  Posts. —  Bob  Croft's. —  Gambling- 
houses. —  French  Hazard. —  Song-and-Supper  Taverns. —  The  Coal-hole. 
—The  Cider  Cellars.— The  "Back  Kitchen."— Ross  :  His  Song  of  "Sam 
Hall." — Evans's. — "Paddy"  Green. — A  Change  for  the  Better. — The 
Anneze. — The  Garrick's  Head. — The  Judge  and  Jury. — Equestrianism. 
— Rowing. — Sparring Page  83 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  DRAMA  IK  THOSE  DATS. 

1847-1862. 

Number  of  Theatres  in  '47. — Her  Majesty's :  Saved  by  Mile.  Lind. — Mile. 
Lind's  Debut:  The  Struggle  for  the  Gallery;  nearly  Crushed. — A  State 
Performance. — Mile.  Lind's  Success. — The  Ballet. — Royal  Italian  Opera : 
"  Lucrezia  Borgia." — Bunu's  Operas. — JuUien. — Promenade  Concerts. — 
Bals  Masque. — JuUien's  Season  of  English  Opera. — Debut  of  Mr.  Sims 
Reeves. — Drury  Lane. — Mr.  James  Anderson's  Management. — Mr.  E.  T. 
Smith's  Regime. — The  "  Monte  Cristo  "  Row. — The  Haymarket. — Mrs. 
Nisbett. — My  Introduction  to  her. — Comedies. — James  Wallack. — The 
Lyceum. — Dickens  Dramatized. — Burlesque. — The  Vestris  Regime. — My 
First  Appearance  in  Public. — Planche's  Extravaganza.s. — Charles  Math- 
ews.— Mr.  Maddox  :  His  Stock  Author  ;  his  Revenge. — The  Princess's. — 
Mrs.  Fanny  Kenible  Butler. — Stars  at  the  Princess's. — Charles  Kerrison 
Sala :  Macready's  Hatred  of  him ;  Cardinal  Campeius. — The  Adelphi. 

—  Wright:  His  Comic  Powers.  —  Paul  Bedford. —  Half-price. —  Buck- 
stone's  Dramas. — Madame  Celeste. — Adelphi  Farces. — The  Green-room. 
— The  Olympic. — G.  V.  Brooke :  His  Success  ;  his  Death. — Leigh  Mur- 
ray.—  Mrs.  Stirling. — Lysander  Thompson. — Mr.  Walter  Watts:  His 
Frauds;  his  Suicide.  —  The  St.  James's. —  Lemaitre. —  Bouffe. — C.  L. 
Kenney. —  Rachel. —  Old  William  Farren. —  Mrs.  Glover. —  Mr.  George 
Bennett.  —  Mrs.  Mowatt.  —  "The  Admiral  Crichton." — Mr.  Shepherd's 
Delicacy 114 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  "  PENDENNIS." 

1851-1853. 

My  Mother's  Disappointment. — Government  Service  not  Incompatible  with 
Literary  Career. — Desultory  Reading. — What  "the  Dear  Bisiiop"  would 
have  said  to  it. — I  Study  Macaulay. — And  Household  Words. — The  "  Man 
in  the  Moon." — The  Theati-ical  Critics. — Longings  for  Fame  and  Money. 
— I  read  "Pendennis." — My  Fate  is  Sealed. — Mere  Business  Aptitude 
not  Enough. — Composition  in  Church. — "My  Dear  Braithren." — Poeni 


xii  CONTENTS. 

in  Progress :  Mr.  Ainsworth  Accepts  it ;  the  Proof ;  the  Printer. — Ha  ! 
ha ! — Indignation  at  Delay. — Albert  Smith. — Dinner  at  Horace  Twiss's. 
— My  Talk  with  Albert  Smith. — We  swear  Friendship. — Mont  Blanc  En- 
tertainment.— Albert  Smith's  Appearance  ;  his  Home ;  Contents  of  his 
Study. — Arthur  Smith  :  His  Original  Fun. — J.  H.  Robins :  His  Imitations. 
— The  Keeleys. — Actors  in  Brompton. — J.  L.  O'Beirne. — My  First  En- 
gagement.— The  Court  Journal. — Pendennis  at  Last ! — The  Fielding 
Club  :  Members  ;  a  Delightful  Resort.  —  Opening  of  "  Mont  Blanc." 
— Visit  to  Paris. — The  "  Dame  aux  Camelias." — The  Keepsake. — The 
Illustrated  London  News. — My  Marriage Page  139 

CHAPTER  VII. 

EARLY    MARRIED    LIFE. 
ISSS-ISSY. 

A  New  Berth  Offered :  Declined.  —  I  become  a  Householder :  The 
''Grounds;"  the  Premises;  our  Menage. —  Sunday  Excursions. —  Mrs. 
Milner  Gibson's  Receptions. — Judge  Talfourd's  Hospitality. — Fresh 
Ground. — My  First  Book  :  Critical  Opinions. — I  Call  on  Dickens :  His 
Per.sonul  Appearance ;  his  Kind  Reception  of  me;  First  Letter  from 
him. — My  Eldest  Son's  Birth  and  Christening. —  Cruikshank's  Magazine. 
— My  Ideal  Pictuie  of  Frank  Smedley:  Tlie  Reality. — Frank  Smedley's 
Characteristics.  —  Cruikshank  and  Smedley.  —  The  Magic  Wheel.  — 
"Mirth  and  Metre." — Mr.  J.  R.  Robinson. — Doughty  Street  Worthies. 
— Our  Doughty  Street  House :  Drawbacks ;  a  Dull  Locality. — Angus 
Reach. — An  Amateur  Pantomime ;  Repeated  before  her  Majesty ;  Dis- 
position of  Funds  Raised. — The  III mt rated  Times. — Mr.  H.  Vizetelly. — 
Personal  Journalism. — "  The  Lounger  at  the  Clubs." — Amateur  Per- 
formance at  Tavistock  Hoflse. — Birth  of  Twin  Sons :  Thackeray's  Let- 
ter of  Congratulation. — Madame  Sala. — Dickens  to  be  Godfather. — Din- 
ner to  Thackeray. — Shirley  Brooks :  His  Cleverness  and  Determination  ; 
Attack  on  the  Whitefriars  Stronghold  ;  its  Success. — Brooks's  Value  to 
Punch. — "Slumming"  with  Dickens. — An  Attempt  at  a  Novel. — The 
Liverness  Courier. — Am  Appointed  Dramatic  Critic  for  the  Daily  News: 
An  Enjoyable  Position. — Some  of  the  D.N.  Staff. — First  Appearance  in 
Household  Words.— ''Ouv  Miscellany."— .My  First  Farce— Mr.  J.  L.Toole. 
— Another  Farce. — Mrs.  Bancroft. — A  Comedietta. — Miss  Ellen  Terry. 
— Douglas  Jerrold :  Un|)ul)lished  Jcux  de  Mots;  Last  Time  of  Seeing 
him  ;  iiis  Death ;  his  Funeral. — For  the  Jerrold  Fund. — Among  the 
Editors. — Bedford's  Brother. — "Sunday.s  Out." — Among  the  Artists. — 
Mr.J.  M.Levy " 163 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

EARLY    EI)IT0RSniP8. 

1866-1858. 

British  Bohemia :  Thackeray's  Description  of  it ;  an  Outsider ;  my  Intro- 
duction   to   it;  "It's   ail    III   Wind,"  etc. — Mr.  Ingram. — My  Doubts. — 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

Mark  Lemon. — I  Consult  Albert  Smith. — Edward  Draper. — Godfrey 
Turner.— F.  I.  Scudamore.— W.  P.  Hale.— E.  L.  Blanchard.— John  Ox- 
enford  :  His  Genius  ;  why  he  "  let  People  down  easily  ;"  Irresponsibility ; 
where  his  Keal  Genius  comes  out. — Mr.  G.  A.  Sala :  My  First  Sight  of 
him. — The  Brothers  Brough. — "Literary  Men." — Robert  Brough's  Start 
in  Life :  At  Liverpool ;  bis  Character ;  his  Radicalism ;  a  Remarkable 
Production,  "Songs  of  the  Governing  Classes." — William  Brough. — 
Artists  of  the  Staff. — The  Comic  Times:  Short-lived. — Our  Almanack. 
— Alnaschar. — Mark  Lemon's  Device. — The  Basket  of  Eggs  fails  ! — 
Death  of  the  C.T. —  Determination. —  Search  for  a  Capitalist. — 77ie 
Train  is  Started. — An  Erratic  Brother :  What  is  to  be  Done  ? — Robert 
Brough  fills  the  Breach. — Contents  of  No.  1. —  Tlie  Idler. — James  Ilan- 
nay. — "Idlers." — Literary  Amenities. — Mr.  Sala  in  Paris:  His  Work 
for  The  Train  ;  his  Journey  to  St.  Petersburg. — Newspaper  Criticism 
on  No.  \. — Later  Contributors. — Mr.  John  Hollingshead. — Mr.  Moy 
Thomas. — Thackeray  on  one  of  our  Artists. — The  Train  stops. — Poor 
Pillicoddy Page  197 

CHAPTER  IX. 

OF   THE    GARRICK    CLUB:    AND   MY  "DIFFICULTY"  THEREWITH. 

1858. 

Clubs  in  London  in  '48. — The  Old  Garrick. — President  and  Vice-president. 
— J.  R.  Durrant.  —  "Bardolph."  —  "Papa."  —  Arts  and  Barts.  —  Other 
Members. — The  Dane. — Actors. — Guardsmen. — Regular  Frequenters. — 
An  Important  Diimer. — A  Proposal. — "Short"  Copy. — Judas. — Inade- 
quate Outburst. — My  Reply. — "  Rubbing  it  in." — Not  Albert  Smith. — I 
Consult  Dickens. — The  Reply  sent. — W.  M.  T.  Appeals. — Special  Meet- 
ing of  Committee  called. — My  Contention. — The  Committee  has  a  High 
Opinion  of  its  Own  Functions. — "  Young  Grub  Street." — I  Decline  to 
Apologize. — I  must  not  be  Present. — More  Correspondence. — General 
Meeting. —  My  Supporters. —  Beaten. — Law. — Legal  Opinions. — Action 
Brought. — Too  Costly. — Edwin  James,  Q.C. — A  Scapegoat? — Jealousy 
between  C.  D.  and  W.  M.  T. — Letters  between  them. — Why  I  have  Told 
this  Story 223 

CHAPTER  X. 

DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFOR.M. 

1858-1872. 

At  Seaton:  Primitive;  Quiet  Enjoyment. — G.  A.  Sala  on  "Polyphemus." 
— The  Welcome  Guest. — More  Dramatic  Work. — Miss  Ellen  Terry. — The 
New  Adelphi  Theatre :  Delightful  Mr.  Bedford. — An  Entertainment :  Mrs. 
Case. — The  Volunteer  Movement:  E.xtends  to  the  P.  0.;  Literary  Of- 
ficers.— Our  Drill :  Poor  Brethren ;  "  Codd  Colonel ;"  the  Populace  Sar- 
castic.— The  Levee. — The  Review. — Very  Wet  Summer. — Amateur  Per- 
formances.— Pleasant  Memories  of  the  C.  S.  V.  R. — Albert  Smith  :  Much 
Altered ;  very  Brusque ;  a  Tiff ;  we  Agree  to  Differ.  —  Relations  Re- 


XiV 


CONTENTS. 


newed  :  Albert  Smith  evidently  out  of  Health  ;  a  Long  Talk  with  him ; 
seized  with  Illness,  and  Dies;  a  Great  Shock;  his  Funeral. — My  Moth- 
er's Illness:  Her  Patience;  her  Death. — Deaths  of  Robert  Brough  and 
Herbert  Ingram. —  Still  Working  for  the  Daily  News  and  lliustrated 
Times. — Mr.  F.  C.  Buruand's  First  Dramatic  Attempt. — Frank  Talfourd's 
Jokes. — My  Abridgment  of  Mrs.  Mathews's  Big  Book. — An  Important  Call. 
— Mr.  Thackeray  Wrongly  Judged. — First  Hint  of  Temple  Bar :  I  am 
made  Sub-editor;  Contents  of  No.  1. — Mortimer  Collins  sees  me  for  the 
First  Time. — Robert  Buchanan. — J.  M.  Bellew. — Contents  of  No.  2. — 
Sala  in  Chambers. — Our  Contributors. — Alfred  Austin. — Miss  Braddon. 
— An  Early  Effort. — A  Swiss  Tour:  I  am  Knocked  Over,  and  Very  111; 
the  English  Doctor. — My  First  Lecture. — Charles  Fechter:  His  Home 
Life  ;  his  Characteristics. — J.  M.  Bellew :  Much  Misunderstood  :  his  Own 
Fault ;  his  Good  Quahties  ;  his  Weakness ;  best  Fitted  for  the  Pulpit ; 
very  Popular ;  his  Decadence. — Fechter  as  Stage-manager ;  a  Business 
Letter. — A  Self-sacrificing  Father. — Exhibition  of  '62. — First  After-din- 
ner Speech. — Visit  to  Stratford. — New  Work. — TJie  Golden  Daggers. — 
Lecturing. — I  Determine  on  the  "  Show." — Harold  Power. — The  "  Show  " 
Criticised  by  John  Forster. — John  Parry's  Kind  Letter. — Close  of  the 
"Show." — Arrival  of  Princess  Alexandra. — I  meet  Lord  Cardigan;  at- 
tacks on  him. — Sir  George  Wombwell  on  the  Balaclava  Charge. — Lord 
Cardigan's  Bravery. — Captain  Nolan. — Death  of  Thackeray :  My  Obitu- 
ary Notice. — Mapesbury  House :  Difficult  to  Find  ;  lost  in  Willesdeu. — 
Fate. — A  Novelist  Wanted  :  I  Volunteer. — A  New  Character ;  Advan- 
tages of  Local  Color. — I  Begin  my  Novel :  Criticisms  on  it. — My  Pretty 
Horse-breaker. — Dickens's  Praise. — Offers  for  More. — Death  of  Frank 
Smedley. — Work  on  the  Morning  Star. — Tinsleys"  Magazine .    Page  248 

CHAPTER  XI. 

A  DICKENS  CHAPTER. 

My  Intimacy  with  Dickens. — Nineteen  Years  my  Senior. — Dickens's  Re- 
gard for  Forster  as  Friend  rather  than  Companion. — To  me  always  Af- 
fectionate ;  always  Interested.  —  Easily  Bored,  and  Imperious  to  Out- 
siders.— First  Invitation:  A  Delightful  Day. — Strained  State  of  Affairs. 
— Not  an  Emotional  Man. — Publishes  his  "Statement:"  Badly  Advised; 
no  Necessity  for  Recalling  Details. — First  Paid  Reading:  Calm  and  Com- 
posed; the  "Carol"  essentially  a  Cliristmas  Book;  the  "Cricket;"  a 
Great  Success. — Provincial  Tour. — Gadshill  Place :  Life  there ;  the  Cha- 
let.— Long  Walks. — The  Murder  in  Cobham  Park. — Dogs. — Talk  about 
his  Books. — Correcting  a  Quotation. — "  In  the  Name  of  Charity." — Heat 
in  Paris. — Liking  for  Actors. — A  Holiday  with  Dickens. — Presence  of 
Mind. — Asleep? — The  Trained  Elephant. — The  Bosjesmen. — Dickens  as 
Editor,  as  After-dinner  Speaker ;  his  Readiness ;  Saved  ! — Farewell  Ban- 
quet to  Dickens. — "  Tlie  Young  Lions." — With  Dickens  to  Liverpool. — 
A  Testimonial :  Tliorough. — Dickens  Home  from  America. — We  Meet 
at  Leeds.  —  Change  in  his  Appearance;  he  tries  to  Rouse;  Stricken 
Down;  Better. — His  Hatred  of  lieiiig  llionght  111.  —  Bad  Symptoms: 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


Will  not  have  Gout;  his  Self-deception. — Last  Meetings. — His  Public 
Farewell.  —  His  Last  Dinner  in  London.  —  Always  Considerate.  —  His 
Death  :  What  Hastened  it ;  why  ? — His  Fame. — ^His  Fortune. — My  Ideas 
on  the  Subject. — The  Author  and  the  Man Page  283 

CHAPTER  XII. 

PEOPLE    I   HAVE   KNOWN. 

Sir  A.  Cockburn :  A  Model  Host ;  the  Palmer  Trial ;  getting  up  the  Case ; 
Compliment  paid  him ;  Impudent  but  Amusing ;  Sir  A.  Cockburn  at 
Dickens's  Readings ;  a  Dinner  in  Hertford  Street ;  Story  of  Sir  R.  Beth- 
ell  ;  a  Good  Horse  Story ;  a  Prosy  Advocate ;  Mr.  Rufus  Rightly ;  Musi- 
cal Visitors  and  Habitues;  Smartness  in  Repartee  ;  Devotion  to  Work; 
Death. — Introduction  to  Lord  Beaconsfield ;  Changes  in  Brighton  ;  Mr. 
Delane's  Successor ;  Dickens  and  Lord  Beaconsfield ;  Authors  less  In- 
teresting than  their  Books  ;  Lord  Beaconsfield's  Opinion. — The  Birth  of 
Pwich ;  Original  Staff. — Mark  Lemon:  As  Funny  Man;  an  E.xcellent 
Editor. — Shirley  Brooks :  Early  Days ;  First  Literary  Plunge ;  Summa- 
ry-writer ;  Special  Commissioner ;  his  Value  to  Punch ;  "  What's  a 
Pound  ?"  Brooks's  Humor ;  his  Appearance  and  Manner  of  Life ;  Last 
Days. — Tom  Taylor. — F.  C.  Burnand. — John  Leech :  His  Friends ;  his 
Kindness  to  me  ;  Stories  of  Leech ;  his  Death. — Horace  Mayhew. — Two 
Stories  of  Thackeray. — J.  R.  Planche. — The  Two  Dukes  of  Wellington. 
— Abraham  Hay  ward :  I  Introduce  Myself  to  him. — Sam  Rogers. — Bish- 
op Wilberforce. — Hay  ward  on  the  Garrick  Case. — Lord  Melbourne. — Sir 
Robert  Peel. — The  "  Inside  Track." — John  Forster  :  Characteristic  Sto- 
ry; his  Interest  in  The  World;  his  Life  of  Swift. — Charles  Reade :  A 
Friend  in  Need  ;  how  he  Worked. — Martin  Tupper  at  Albury :  His  Won- 
derful Book.  —  Lord  Tennyson. — Carlyle  and  the"Puir  Creatur." — 
George  Eliot. — J.  T.  Delane :  His  Sensitiveness ;  will  not  be  a  "  Celebri- 
ty." —  Robert  Keeley :  Two  Stories  of  him.  —  J.  B.  Buckstone.  —  Miss 
Braddon:  Her  Letters. — Jules  Janin:  Story  of  the  Two  Dumasos ;  Janin's 
House ;  Account  of  his  Death ;  Dislike  to  being  Pitied ;  French  Cus- 
toms ;  his  Work-room ;  Anecdote ;  Janin's  Funeral ;  Celebrities  Pres- 
ent.— E.A. Sothern:  Practical  Joking;  Last  Days. — C.  J.  Mathews  :  At 
Home ;  a  Letter  from  him. — Mortimer  Collins :  A  Poem  by  him     .  308 

CHAPTER  Xm. 

LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE. 

Quietly  Happy  Days. — Promotion. — The  Missing  Letter  Branch. — My  Staff. 
— A  Disbehever :  Teaching  a  Lesson. — "  Test  Letters  ;"  Grandfather's 
Money. — Mr.  W.  Peacock's  Method. — The  Old  Bailey :  Leaders ;  Juniors. 
— City  Detectives. — A  "  Sell." — Interesting  Experiences. — How  it  was 
Done. — Purchase  of  the  Telegraphs. — F.  I.  Scudaraore. — Mr.  Tilley. — 
New  Use  for  my  Services. — Necessary  Qualifications ;  Sounds  Well ;  I 
Accei)t. — My  New  Career  and  its  Duties. — I  "Orate." — The  Little  Man; 
1  am  Denounced ;  an  Ugly  Customer ;  why  the  et  cetera  ?  my  Defence ; 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

Victory ;  ''  Yates !" — I  occasion  Surprise. — Lord  Lonsdale :  at  Lowthei  ; 
his  Comments ;  Anecdote. — My  Official  Journeys  :  Devon  and  Cornwall, 
Boscastle,  Helston. — Literary  Work :  Two  Novels. — The  Lake  Country. 
— Dublin,  Killarney,  Galway. — End  Approaches  :  Consultations  ;  Scuda- 
more's  Advice. — Uncomfortable  Doubts ;  a  Serious  Outlook. — I  am  Pen- 
sioned. —  Farewell  Dinner  to  me.  —  Two  Well-known  P.  0.  Officials. — 
Their  Mutual  Dislike. — Sir  Roland  Hill :  My  Move ;  Trollope  Winged ; 
Sir  R.  Hill's  Sarcasms ;  his  Dry  Humor ;  bis  Later  Days  ;  his  Character- 
istic Caution.  —  Anthony  Trollope  :  His  Roughness  and  Roarings  ;  his 
Goodness  of  Heart ;  Love  for  his  Office ;  why  he  Retired ;  no  Humor. — 
A  Good  Story Page  345 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

UNDER   THE    STARS  AND    STRIFES. 

1872-1873. 

A  Little  Rest.— Not  Wholly  Idle.— Doubts.— A  Suggestion.—"  The  Cheva- 
lier :"  His  Appearance. — First  Idea  of  America :  Suggestion  Approved  ; 
Accepted. — At  Work  for  America. — Winding  up. — Farewell  Festivities. 
— Night  before  Sailing. — Off. — Cuba  Passengers. — "A  Scrape." — Mis- 
taken Identity. — Arrival. — A  Doubtful  Welcome. — Interviewers. — Busi- 
ness Talk. — Hearty  Reception. — Decline  Chicago  Debut. — First  Appear- 
ance in  New  York  :  Success  ;  Criticisms. — Good  Offer  for  a  Story. — To 
Chicago.  —  Dine  with  Liberal  Club. — Women's  Mass -meeting. — Mr. 
Marsh. — Miss  Blake. — Rev.  Olympia  Brown. — Pogram  ! — The  Veteran 
Susan  B. — Am  Hospitably  Entertained. — Further  Lectures  in  New  York. 
— New  Haven. — Boston. — Longfellow. — Boston  Fire  — An  Enthusiastic 
"  Boss." — Philadelphia  Friends. — Funeral  of  General  Meade. — In  Wash- 
ington.— Long  Journeys. — Work  in  the  Train. — Manner  of  Life. — On 
Grand  Tour. — Desperate  Weather. — Snowed  Up. — Christmas-day. — Miss 
Cushman. — Niagara. — Montreal. — End  of  Tour. — Kindness  Everywhere. 
— "  The  Future." — Dislike  of  Public  Appearances. — I  engage  with  Mr. 
Bennett. — To  New  York. — A  New  Task. — To  the  Inaugural  Ceremonies. 
— I  Describe  them.  —  Give  Satisfaction.  —  Farewell  Entertainments  in 
New  York. — Home. — What  America  did  for  me. — My  Gratitude    .  876 

CHAPTER  XV. 

IN    THK    "herald's"    l.VBARD. 

1873-1875. 

Homeward  Voyage. — Arrive. — Off  to  Paris. — Return. — Looking  up  Ar- 
rcar.s. — Dr.  Hosiner. — My  Intondcil  Colleagues  al  Vienna. — Great  Things 
to  be  Done. — Our  RivaLs. — Mr.  Archibald  Forbes  in  Vienna:  We  are  to 
"Chum." — Off  at  Last. —  Our  Viennese  Lo<lgings. —  A  Pleasant  Cama- 
raderie,— South  Kensington  licpresenlation. — Our  Mess  at  tlie  Taube. — 
Concordia  Dinner. — Presented  to  the  Prince  of  Wales. — Opening  of  the 
Exiiibilioii. — Our  Cal)]c  Messages:  Victory. — A  Dinner  in  Honor  of  our 
SuccesB. — Full  War-paiut. —  To  Budu-Pesth. —  Anotiier  Prince  learning 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

his  Business. — Home. — Off  Again. — I  Note  the  Downfall  of  Thiers. — 
In  Attendance  on  the  Shah. — Mark  Twain  and  the  British  Man-o'-war's- 
man. — Still  alter  the  Shah. — With  him  to  Paris,  Versailles,  the  Old 
Opera-house,  Auteuil,  and  the  Trocadero. — Back  to  Vienna. — Glorious 
Time. — Tour  through  Germany :  Gmiinden,  Ischl,  Munich,  Nuremberg. 
— To  Dublin. — Old  Friends. — To  Galway. — The  Virginius  Difficulty. — I 
go  to  Madrid :  Horrible  Journey ;  a  Kindly  Magiiifico ;  Quarantine  and 
Robbery.  —  At  Madrid.  —  General  Sickles.  —  Sir  A.  H.  Layard.  —  Count 
Maffei.  —  A  Bull-fight.  —  A  Dangerous  Voyage  :  My  Intercession  Im- 
plored ;  the  Value  of  Quick  Hearing. — A  Long  Journey  in  Prospect. — 
Americans  and  Russians. — I  am  to  go  to  St.  Petersburg. — Forbes  in  In- 
dia.— I  meet  Two  Distinguished  Medicos. — In  Berlin. — Dr.  Strousberg. — 
Mi  route. — At  St.  Petersburg. — Journalists  there. — Mr.  Napier  Broome's 
Work. — The  American  Minister. — Eugene  Schuyler. —  Entertainments 
and  Rejoicings. —  The  Scotsman. —  Preparations. —  Telegraph  Arrange- 
ments.— The  Wedding  Ceremony. — The  Anglican  Service:  A  Wonder- 
ful Crowd;  a  Veteran  Embarrassed. — I  Send  my  Message;  all  Right! 
— I  am  Complimented. — Other  Herald  Work. — John  Mitchel. — Have  no 
more  Time  at  Mr.  Bennett's  Disposal. — I  Retire     ....    Page  3*76 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

"the  world." 

Enforced  Travel. — Somewhat  too  Much  of  it. — Again  in  Doubt. — My  Par- 
ticular Work. — An  Ideal  "Blend." — Grenville  Murray:  His  History. — 
"  Sir  Hector  Stubble." — Murray  at  Odessa. — I  Visit  him  in  the  Albany. 
— The  Queen's  Messenger. — In  Court. — Murray  Departs. — His  Work  in 
Paris. — He  Approves  of  my  Idea,  and  Suggests  Partnership. — Making 
AiTangements  for  Starting  a  New  Journal :  Its  Title  ;  Finance. — Editor. 
— My  Word  of  Warning. — Arbitration  if  Necessary. — The  Prospectus. 
— An  Announcement. — Contributors :  Mr.  Escott ;  Mr.  Labouchere ;  other 
Contributors. — Issue  of  No.  1. — Attempt  at  Introducing  the  Eeclame. — 
Notable  Articles. — Unappreciated. — Just  in  Time. — A  Lucky  Prosecu- 
tion. —  Mr.  George  Lewis's  Triumph.  —  My  Foresight.  —  Dissolution  of 
Partnership. — The  Series  "  Celebrities  at  Home." — Boswell's  Work. — 
"  Royalties  "  at  Home. — Cause  of  our  Success. — The  Prophets  at  Fault. 
—Become  a  Necessity 424 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 


MEMOIRS  OF 
A  MAN   OF   THE   WORLD. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAKENTAGE   AND   CHILDHOOD. 

I  WAS  born  on  the  3d  July,  1831,  in  a  street  called,  I 
believe,  Howard  Place,  off  the  Calton  Hill,  Edinburgh. 
The  fact  that  my  birth  took  place  in  Scotland,  or  indeed 
anywhere  out  of  London,  where  my  parents  habitually 
resided,  was  accidental.  It  was  indeed  due  to  the  circum- 
stance that  my  mother  was  accompanying  my  father,  who 
was  engaged  on  a  professional  tour,  and  that  I  arrived  in 
this  world  some  little  time  before  I  was  expected. 

My  father  and  my  mother  belonged  to  the  theatrical 
profession.  The  former,  Frederick  Henry  Yates,  was 
born  on  the  4th  February,  1797,  the  youngest  son  of 
Thomas  Yates,  a  wholesale  tobacco  manufacturer,  who 
lived  in  Russell  Square,  and  had  a  warehouse  in  Thames 
Street.  Of  my  father's  three  brothers,  the  eldest,  Thomas, 
studied  medicine  successfully,  was  accounted  very  learned 
and  prosperous,  and  lived  for  many  years  at  57  Regency 
Square,  Brighton,  esteemed  as  one  of  the  wisest  and  most 
trustworthy  of  the  numerous  physicians  who  in  the  first 
half  of  the  century  aided  in  establishing  the  reputation 
of  that  growing  watering-place.  There  are  Brightonians 
yet  alive  who  talk  to  me  of  my  uncle  Dr.  Yates,  remem- 
bering him  with  his  white  hair,  snowy  shirt-frill,  Hessian 
boots  or  black  gaiters,  long  black  coat,  and  gold-headed 
cane  ;  a  man  of  importance  in  the  town,  senior  physician 
to  the  Sussex  County  Hosj^ital,  and  principal  medical 
attendant  on  Harriet  Duchess  of  St.  Albans,  who  visited 

1 


2  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

Brighton  frequently  in  those  days,  driving  along  the 
King's  Road  in  state,  or  walking  on  the  Steine  with  her 
coffee-colored  pugs.  He  was  the  sternest -looking  and 
the  kindest-hearted  of  men,  to  me  was  always  prodigal 
of  good  advice  and  half-sovereigns,  and  must  have  had  a 
large  practice,  for  he  lived  in  good  style  ;  and  one  of  my 
childish  recollections  is  hearing  my  aunt  say  that  "  she 
never  bought  black  silk  for  aprons,  for  the  doctor  went 
to  so  many  funerals,  and  always  brought  away  his  silk 
scarf  and  hat -band."  The  other  brothers,  Walter  and 
Charles,  neither  of  whom  I  ever  saw,  were  in  the  military 
service  of  the  Honorable  East  India  Company.  The  for- 
mer lived  to  be  a  brigadier-general ;  the  latter,  known  in 
the  army  as  "  Kemindine "  Yates,  from  his  gallant  de- 
fence of  some  pass  of  that  name,  died  a  major,  compara- 
tively young. 

My  father,  the  youngest  of  the  family — he  had  two  sis- 
ters, to  one  of  whom  I  shall  have  afterwards  to  refer — re- 
ceived his  rudimentary  education  at  a  preparatory  school 
at  Whichmoro  Hill,  where  he  met  John  Reeve,  subse- 
quently his  actor-colleague,  then  a  tiny  boy.  His  second 
school  was  the  Charter-house,  where  he  had  Dr.  Raine,  and 
later  on  Dr.  Russell,  known  as  "Paw"  Russell  from  his 
enormous  hands,  for  his  head-masters,  and  Henry  Plave- 
lock,  the  future  savior  of  India,  for  his  contemporary  and 
friend.  He  always  spoke  pleasantly  of  his  school-days. 
My  friend,  the  late  Mr.  W.  P.  Hale,  son  of  Archdeacon 
Hale,  Master  of  the  Charter-house,  told  me  that  when  a 
school-boy  he  once  addressed  a  letter  to  my  father  at  the 
Adelphi  Theatre,  asking  him,  on  the  plea  of  his  having 
formerly  been  a  Carthusian,  for  some  free  admissions  to 
the  play.  These  came  by  the  next  post,  enclosed  in  a 
half-sheet  of  paper,  on  which  was  written,  "  Floreat  a?ter- 
nnm  Carlhusiana  domus. — F.  H.  Y." 

On  leaving  school  my  father  obtained  an  appointment 
in  the  Commissariat  l)e|»artmen1,  and  was  sent  out  to  the 
army  tlien  fighting  under  the  Duke  of  "Wellington  in  the 
Peninsula.  I  have  always  understood  that  he  was  present 
at  tlu;  battle  of  Waterloo,  tliough  of  this  I  have  no  direct 
proof;  but  he  was  certainly  on  duty  with  the  army  of  oc- 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  3 

cupation  at  Valenciennes,  in  November  of  the  Waterloo 
year,  for  the  late  Dr.  Quin  and  the  late  Lord  William  Pitt 
Lennox  have  frequently  spoken  to  me  of  his  being  there 
with  them,  a  most  delightful  comrade.  It  was  there  that 
he  first  gave  evidence  of  the  possession  of  any  histrionic 
ability,  and  his  adoption  of  the  stage  as  a  profession  had 
its  origin,  doubtless,  in  the  success  which  attended  his 
amateur  performances  with  his  military  friends. 

His  determination  to  make  some  practical  use  of  his 
talents  was  arrived  at  in  a  somewhat  curious  way.  In- 
vited to  a  fancy-dress  ball,  he  went  as  "Somno,  the  sleep- 
walker," a  character  then  being  played  by  Charles  Math- 
ews the  elder,  in  which  the  great  mimic  introduced  his 
celebrated  imitations.  To  my  father's  surprise,  Mathews 
appeared  among  the  guests  ;  but  nothing  daunted,  the 
young  man  sustained  his  impersonation,  and,  on  being 
requested,  gave  his  own  imitations  of  the  actors  usually 
imitated  by  Mathews,  winding  up  with  one  of  MathcAvs 
himself.  The  great  actor  was  so  struck  by  the  ability — 
and  possibly  by  the  impudence — of  the  amateur,  that  he 
requested  to  be  introduced,  and  begged  my  father  to  call 
on  him  the  next  day.  At  this  interview  he  inquired 
about  his  young  friend's  profession  and  prospects,  and 
most  strongly  urged  him  to  take  to  the  stage. 

"Commissary!"  testily  repeated  the  comedian,  after  my 
father  had  named  his  avocation,  "  commissary  !  drome- 
dary! Carrying  about  other  people's  provisions  and  get- 
ting none  yourself!  Feeding  fat  soldiers  and  dying  of 
starvation!  No,  no;  give  it  up,  young  man,  and  let  your 
real  talents  find  their  proper  channel."  My  father  took 
the  advice  thus  warmly  urged  upon  him,  and  made  his 
first  appearance  as  a  professional  actor  in  the  year  1817. 

The  conference  was  described  by  my  father  in  one  of 
his  entertainments,  and  afforded  scope  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  very  effective  and  not  illegitimate  "  gag."  He 
told  how  Mathews  complimented  him  on  his  performance, 
and  especially  on  his  imitations.  "They  were  excellent, 
excellent — except  one!  You  can't  imitate  me  !"  As  my 
father  repeated  the  words  he  raised  his  shoulder,  twisted 
his  mouth,  and  limped  up  and  down  the  stage,  the  very 


4  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

double  of  Mathews.  It  was  a  wonderful  piece  of  mim- 
icry, and  always  brought  down  the  house. 

In  the  following  year  (1818)  he  made  his  debut  in  Lon- 
don at  Covent  Garden,  appearing  as  lago  to  the  Othello 
of  Charles  Young,  the  Cassio  of  Charles  Kemble,  and  the 
Desdemona  of  Miss  O'Neil.  He  told  my  mother  with 
great  glee  in  after-years  that  one  of  the  newspajiers,  crit- 
icising his  first  appearance,  described  him  as  "  a  small 
man  of  Jewish  aspect,  by  no  means  pleasing."  Whether 
the  critic  was  right  can  be  judged  by  the  portrait  prefixed 
to  this  volume.  Besides  a  full-length  water-color  sketch 
by  Deighton  in  my  possession,  there  are  three  portraits 
of  my  father  which  I  know.  The  original  of  the  frontis- 
piece is  by  Lonsdale,  in  the  Garrick  Club  gallery ;  an- 
other, by  Ambrose,  belongs  to  me;  while  the  third  is  the 
property  of  my  friend  Mr.  J.  C.  Parkinson,  and  was  ac- 
quired by  him  in  ratlier  an  odd  way.  It  had  originally 
belonged  to  "Paddy"  Green,  forming  one  of  the  theat- 
rical collection  on  the  walls  of  Evans's,  and  was  inchided 
in  the  sale  of  that  collection  at  Christie's.  Mr.  Parkinson 
had  noted  the  picture  in  the  catalogue,  and,  being  one  of 
my  most  intimate  friends,  desired  to  buy  it.  Pie  accord- 
ingly attended  the  sale,  bought  tlirce  other  lots,  but  before 
the  "Frederick  Yates  "  was  put  up  he  was  called  away  by 
a  telegram.  When  he  returned,  the  portrait  had  been 
sold.  A  year  or  two  afterwards  another  theatrical  col- 
lection, that  of  Lacy,  the  dramatic  publislicr  in  the  Strand, 
came  to  tlic  hammer  at  Christie's.  Again  ]\Ir.  Parkinson 
was  present;  again  he  saw  in  the  catalogue  "Portrait  of 
Fred.  Yates,"  which  eventually  he  bid  for  and  bought. 
When  he  got  it  liome,  he  found,  from  a  label  on  the  back, 
that  it  was  tlie  same  portrait  wliich  lie  had  previously 
missed,  and  which  Lacy  had  secured  during  his  tempo- 
rary absence. 

I  may  say  here  that  from  persons  who  knew  hini  well 
and  who  had  seen  liim  often,  Charles  Dickens  and  many 
celebrated  actors  among  them,  I  have  heard  the  highest 
praise  of  my  father's  histrionic  powers.  Notably  of  his 
versatility:  lie  played  no  part  badly,  and  he  could  ])lay 
more  parts  and  more  diverse  jtarts  than  most  of  his  com- 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  5 

rades.  lie  was  the  "  stock  "  lago  of  Covent  Garden  while 
engaged  there,  and  was  reckoned  to  play  it  specially  well ; 
he  was  a  wonderful  Jew,  an  excellent  Frenchman,  an  im- 
passioned lover,  and  excelled  equally  as  a  cool  dandy  or  a 
reckless  dare-devil.  As  a  proof  of  this  versatility,  I  note 
that  his  second  appearance  at  Covent  Garden  was  as 
Falstaff,  on  which  occasion  Macready  played  Hotspur 
for  the  first  time.  Dickens,  writing  to  me  after  seeing 
Henry  Irving,  in  his  early  days,  as  Rawdon  Scudamore, 
in  "  Hunted  Down,"  says  :  "  He  reminded  me  very  much 
of  your  father."  Dickens  also  thought  Fechter  very  like 
my  father  in  many  respects.  Of  Dickens's  general  opin- 
ion of  the  acting  of  my  father  and  my  mother  we  shall 
see  more  farther  on. 

In  1825  he  went  into  management  on  his  own  account, 
taking  the  Adelphi  Theatre,  with  which  his  name  was  af- 
terwards so  largely  identified,  in  conjunction  with  Dan- 
iel Terry,  a  clever  actor,  but  who  is  now  best  known,  if 
known  at  all,  by  his  having  been  honored  with  the  friend- 
ship of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Although  great  success  was 
achieved  by  the  dramatization  of  j^opular  novels,  such  as 
" The  Flying  Dutchman"  and  Fenimore  Cooper's  "  Pilot," 
neither  of  the  partners  was  a  good  business  man,  and  the 
speculation  ended  in  a  large  loss,  Terry's  share  of  which 
was  paid  by  Scott,  who  was  his  surety.  I  find  among 
my  father's  papers  the  following  admirable  letter  from 
Sir  Walter.  It  has  never  before  been  published,  and  it 
proves,  as  Lockhart  points  out  in  the  famous  "  Life,"  how 
very  much  easier  it  was  for  Scott  to  give  excellent  ad- 
vice than  to  practise  what  he  preached. 

"3  Walter  Street,  17th  January  [no  year]. 

"  My  dear  Terry, — I  duly  received  your  letter,  but  am  a  little  alarmed 
at  the  subject.  My  good  fellow,  you  will  have  hard  swimming,  though 
wiud  and  tide  be  with  you,  considering  the  large  sums  which  you  have  to 
pay  up,  and  that  any  check  which  may  occupy  a  great  share  of  your  funds 
may  make  that  hopeful  undertaking  precarious. 

"  I  doubt  greatly  whether  the  Paris  undertaking  can  succeed.  The 
French  (sic)  have  shown  a  disinclination  to  English  actors ;  and  for  the 
British,  they  are,  generally  speaking,  persons  who  care  little  about  their 
own  country  or  language  while  they  sojourn  in  a  foreign  country.  There 
are  about  twenty-five  or  thirty  theatres  in  Paris  already,  and  I  fear  it 


0  •     FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

would  be  a  very  rash  speculation  to  erect  or  open  another.  I  have  no 
doubt  you  have  taken  better  advice  than  mine ;  hut  having  tindertaken 
one  good  adventure,  chiefly  on  credit,  I  think  you  should  patise  before  being 
too  sanguine  in  undertaking  another. 

"  After  all,  if  you  do  determine  on  this,  I  will  send  you  an  introduction 
to  the  secreUry  of  our  Ambassador ;  but  I  would  have  you  reflect  seriously 
that  there  is  no  royal  road  to  riches  any  more  than  to  wisdom,  and  that 
'  Catch  is  a  good  dog,  but  Holdfast  a  better.'  Your  fine  family  ought  to 
make  you  cautious,  li  you  can  clear  the  Adelphi,  you  will  establish  their 
future";  but  a  failure  which  might  be  brought  about  by  an  outlay  of  capi- 
tal elsewhere  would  be  an  irremediable  misfortune,  anything  short  of  ab- 
solute certainty  of  success  {sic). 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  not  suppose  that  I  would  knowingly  dissuade  you 
from  any  beneficial  plan  for  securing  or  hastening  your  advancement  in 
life.  But  I  must  say,  with  General  Tom  Thumb,  'King  Arthur,  beware!' 
Many  a  thing  good  in  itself  becomes  ruinous  to  individuals  who  have  not 
provided  the  funds  necessary;  and  a  London  and  Paris  theatre  sounds  very 
like  playing  for  a  gammon,  which  may  be  the  noblest,  but  is  seldom  the 
wisest  game.  Kind  love  to  Mrs.  Terry.  I  write  in  haste,  so  make  al- 
lowance for  errors  of  expression.         Yours  truly,  Walter  Scott." 

Readers  of  Lockhart  will  see  how  exactly  Terry  and 
Scott  were  running  on  parallel  lines.  After  Terry's  re- 
tirement in  1828,  my  father  was  joined  in  management 
])y  his  friend  and  tutor  Charles  Mathews,  and  the  palmy 
days  of  the  Adelphi  commenced  then  and  there. 

Four  years  previously  Frederick  Yates  had  married 
Miss  Elizabeth  Brunton,  a  young  actress  holding  a  good 
])0.sition  at  Covent  Garden,  and  coming  from  a  well-known 
theatrical  family.  Her  grandfather,  John  Brunton,  and, 
after  him,  her  father,  also  John  Brunton,  had  for  very 
many  years  liad  the  management  of  what  was  known  in 
tlieatrical  parlance  as  "the  Norfolk  circuit" — a  number 
of  towns  in  the  eastern  counties,  Avitli  Norwich  for  their 
l»rincipal  centre;  her  aunt,  Miss  Louisa  Brunton,  a  hand- 
Konie  and  clever  actress,  was  married  in  1807  to  the  sev- 
cntli  Earl  of  Craven  ;  and  her  uncle,  Richard  Brunton, 
was  in  the  army,  was  present  at  Waterloo,  and  died  colo- 
nel of  the  l.'lth  Hussars,  then  Light  Dragoons. 

A  miniature  of  my  motlier  in  her  youth,  painted  by 
Stump  of  Cork  Street,  admirably  reproduced  in  this  vol- 
ume, sliows  her  as  a  lovely  girl;  but  in  my  recollection 
of  the  last  half— thirty  years— <jf  her  life,  her  charm  lay 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  7 

rather  in  the  softness  and  sweetness  of  her  expression  than 
in  regularity  of  feature.  Her  eyes  were  blue  and  rather 
hard,  her  complexion  was  dark;  but  her  mouth,  furnished 
with  beautiful  teeth,  was  singularly  winning,  her  laugh 
infectious,  and  her  voice  one  of  the  sweetest  ever  heard. 
In  1858,  years  after  she  had  retired  from  the  stage, 
Charles  Dickens  wrote  to  her  in  reference  to  her  coming 
to  one  of  his  Readings:  "Whenever  you  can  come,  your 
presence  will  give  me  a  new  interest  in  that  evening. 
No  one  alive  can  have  more  delightful  associations  with 
the  lightest  sound  of  your  voice  than  I  have ;  and  to  give 
you  a  minute's  interest  and  pleasure,  in  acknowledgment 
of  the  uncountable  hours  of  happiness  you  gave  me  when 
you  were  a  mysterious  angel  to  me,  would  honestly  grat- 
ify my  heart."  And  again,  after  her  death  in  1860, 
Dickens  wrote  to  me  :  "  You  know  what  a  loving  and 
faithful  remembrance  I  always  had  of  your  mother  as 
a  part  of  my  youth,  no  more  capable  of  restoration  than 
my  youth  itself.  All  the  womanly  goodness,  grace,  and 
beauty  of  my  drama  went  out  with  her.  To  the  last,  I 
never  could  hear  her  voice  without  emotion.  I  think  of 
her  as  of  a  beautiful  part  of  my  own  youth,  and  the 
dream  that  we  are  all  dreaming  seems  to  darken."  She 
was  an  excellent  "all-round"  actress^  and  raised  the  her- 
oines of  melodrama,  or  "  domestic  "  drama,  into  a  spe- 
cialty, playing  the  characters  with  genuine  pathos,  wholly 
unaccompanied  by  exaggeration.  In  her  pi'ivate  life  she 
was  one  of  the  best  of  women,  truly  and  unaffectedly 
pious,  cheerful,  and  charitable ;  a  loving,  forgiving,  and 
long  -  suffering  wife,  a  most  self  -  sacrificing  and  devoted 
mother. 

I  do  not  know  the  date  of  my  christening,  bnt  the 
record  is  in  the  registry  of  Brompton  Church,  and  the 
ceremony  was  performed  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Speidell, 
rector  of  Crick  in  Northamptonshire,  a  friend  of  Charles 
Mathews  and  Theodore  Hook.  The  latter,  who  was  in- 
timate with  my  father — I  can  perfectly  recollect  seeing 
him  at  our  house — was  present  at  some  little  festivity  on 
the  occasion,  as  I  have  in  my  possession  the  following 
note  to  my  mother: 


8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

"Fulham,  Monday. 
"  Mt  dear  Mrs.  Yates, — Your  invitation  for  the  20th  is  so  very  agre- 
able  (sic)  to  me  that,  unlike  your  Victorine,*  I'll  7iot  '  sleep  upon  it,'  but 
say,  Yes,  with  all  my  heart,  at  once.  I  have  a  great  fancy  for  making 
Christians,  and  have  already  twice  this  year  assisted  at  similar  ceremo- 
nies. That  our  excellent  friend  Speidell  is  to  be  officiating  minister  on 
the  occasion  makes  the  affair  more  agreable  (sic).  Believe  me,  with 
sincere  regard  to  Monsieur  Fr6derique  pere,  yours  most  sincerely, 

"Theodore  Hook." 

My  godfathers  were  the  Honorable  Edmund  Byng, 
second  son  of  the  fifth  Viscount  Torrington — of  whom  I 
shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter — and  Frederick  Hodg- 
son, M.P.  for  Barnstaple,  known  as  "  Brown  Stout,"  from 
his  size  and  dark  complexion,  and  the  fact  that  he  was 
the  owner  of  a  famous  brewery  at  Bow,  whence  issued 
that  "  Hodgson's  India  Pale  Ale  "  which,  long  before  the 
days  of  Bass  and  Allsopp,  had  an  enonnous  sale  in  the 
East,  and  realized  a  splendid  fortune  for  its  proprietor.! 
The  names  given  to  me  at  my  baptism  were  accordingly 
Edmund  Hodgson,  which  evoked  a  joke  from  Theodore 
Hook,  "Fred,  what  are  you  going  to  call  the  boy?"  lio 
asked  my  father.  "Edmund  Hodgson,  after  his  godfa- 
thers, Byng  and  Hodgson."  "  What,  big  Hodgson,  Brown 
Stout,  the  brewer?"  "Yes."  "Humph  !"  said  Hook, 
"then  you'd  much  better  call  him  Bingo  Stingo!" 

At  that  time,  and  during  all  my  early  childhood,  we 
lived  at  No.  411  Strand,  forming  part  of  the  Adelphi 
Theatre  premises,  a  house  which,  during  its  previous 
tenancy  by  Terry,  had  been  visited  by  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
and  which  is  described  in  one  of  his  letters  as  "  a  curious 
dwelling,  not  larger  than  a  squirrel's  cage,  which  he  (Ter- 
ry) has  contrived  to  squeeze  out  of  the  vacant  space  of 
tlie  theatre,  and  which  is  accessible  by  a  most  complicated 
combination  of  staircases  and  small  passages."    A  small 

*  "  Victorine ;  or,  I'll  sleep  on  It,"  a  drama  by  Buckstone,  with  my 
mother  as  the  heroine,  was  played  at  the  Adelphi  with  very  great  success. 

f  "  For  you  never  were  in  India, 

That  you  know  not  IIodoson's  Ale." 

Vide  "  Jupiter  and  the  Indian  Ale  "  in  the  "  Ballads  of  Bon  Gaultier." 


PARENTAGE  AJND   GHILDUOOD.  9 

side-door,  immediately  inside  the  street-door,  and  at  the 
foot  of  a  long  and  steep  flight  of  stairs,  gave  access  to 
the  public  lobby  of  the  theatre;  and  through  that  door 
I  used  to  take  furtive  peeps  at  all  I  was  pei'raitted,  until 
after  I  was  seven  years  old,  to  see  of  the  fairy  world 
beyond.  I  remember  well  the  bright  paper  on  the  walls 
and  the  brilliant  gasaliers,  which  I  had  occasionally  had 
the  rare  happiness  to  see  alight;  but  I  knew  of  nothing 
further.  I  thought  this  lobby  was  "  the  theatre  "  of  which 
I  heard  such  constant  mention,  and  thoroughly  believed 
that  "the  boxes,"  so  frequently  referred  to,  were  actual 
chests,  on  which,  or  in  which,  people  sat  while  the  mys- 
terious "  performance  "  took  place.  My  parents  had  no 
great  liking  for  their  calling,  and  I  was  not  merely  never 
allowed  to  visit  the  theatre,  but  was  kept  in  as  much 
ignorance,  in  regard  to  it  and  its  surroundings,  as  was 
possible  with  my  position. 

This  distaste  for  his  profession  on  my  father's  part 
assuredly  arose  from  no  want  of  success,  for  under  him 
and  his  coadjutors  the  "little  Adelphi "  had  become  one 
of  the  most  popular  places  of  amusement  in  London.  It 
had  its  specialty  as  the  home  of  melodrama,  a  class  of 
entertainment  which,  having  almost  fallen  into  desuetude, 
seems  now  to  have  been  successfully  revived  by  Mr.  G. 
R.  Sims;*  and  it  was  a  great  "half-price"  house — "half- 
price,"  now  entirely  obsolete,  being  the  reduced  admis- 
sion-money taken  after  nine  o'clock.  It  was  very  cramped 
and  stuffy  and  inconvenient,  but  it  had  always  enjoyed 
a  very  large  share  of  public  favor.  In  its  early  days  the 
town  had  gone  mad  over  "Tom  and  Jerry;  or.  Life  in 
London,"  when  produced  there;  in  it  Mathews  had  given 
his  most  celebrated  "At  Home"  entertainments.  Buck- 
stone's  dramas,  "  Victorine,"  "  The  Wreck  Ashore,"  "  Isa- 
bel," etc.,  with  my  mother  as  heroine,  my  father  in  some 
eccentric  part,  John  Reeve  f  and  the  author  himself  as 

*  "  Or  in  the  Adelphi  sitting,  half  in  rapture,  half  in  tears, 

Saw  the  glorious  melodrama  conjure  up  the  shades  of  years." 

Bo7i  Gaulder^s  Ballads. 
f  John  Reeve  was  the  principal  "  low  comedian  "  of  the  theatre,  a  man 
of  much  humor  and  an  enormous  favorite.     So  popular  was  he  that  his 

1* 


10  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

the  fun-makers,  and  Mrs.  Fitzwilliam,  O.  Smith,  Wilkin- 
son, Lyon,  Hemming,  Cullenford,  and  many  long-forgot- 
ten names. 

Plays  adapted  from  popular  novels  were  favorite  sub- 
jects for  presentation  at  the  Adelphi.  Buhver's  "Last 
Days  of  Pompeii,"  with  my  father  as  Arbaces,  and  Mrs. 
Keeley — still  happily  alive,  and  in  wonderful  bodily  and 
mental  vigor  at  seventy-nine — as  the  blind  girl  Nydia. 
I  have  heard  my  mother  speak  of  this  impersonation  of 
Mrs.  Keeley's  as  singularly  graceful  and  pathetic,  and  of 
her  singing  of  a  ballad,  "  The  Wind  and  the  Beam  loved 
the  Rose,"  as  simply  perfect.  In  later  years  the  same 
actress  achieved  great  notoriety  as  the  hero  of  a  drama 
made  out  of  a  very  different  kind  of  novel — Harrison 
Ainsworth's  "Jack  Sheppard,"  in  which  Mr.  Paul  Bedford 
first  made  any  special  mark  by  his  performance  of  Blueskin. 

The  genius  of  Charles  Dickens  seems  from  the  first  to 
have  been  the  prey  of  the  dramatic  "  adapter,"  who  cut 
and  hacked,  excised  and  even  added,  to  suit  the  require- 
ments of  his  clients.  "  Pickwick "  was,  I  believe,  put 
upon  the  stage,  with  John  Reeve  as  Sam  Weller ;  but  it 
could  not  have  made  any  mark,  and  was  probably  only 
dramatized  for  the  sake  of  presenting  living  semblance 
of  characters  which  were  then  in  every  shop -window 
and  on  every  drawing-room  table  ;  but  "  Nickleby  "  and 
"Oliver  Twist"  were,  at  the  Adelphi,  exceptional  suc- 
cesses. That  they  were  so  seems  to  have  given  great 
offence  to  that  worthy  but  very  prejudiced  gentleman, 
Mr.  John  Forster.  Dickens  himself,  as  I  will  shortly 
show,  was  greatly  pleased  with  the  "  Nickleby "  play ; 
but  Forster,  Dickenso  ipso  Dickensior,  treats  the  subject 


frequent  appearance  on  the  stage,  when  considerably  overcome  with  drini^, 
was  generally  good-naturedly  condoned  by  the  audience.  On  one  occa- 
sion, however,  and  when  he  happened  to  be  playing  a  supposed  scene  of 
intoxication,  he  was  really  so  far  gone  that  he  could  not  keep  his  balance, 
and  fell  down.  This  was  too  much,  and  the  spectators  lustily  hisse'd. 
John  Reeve  raised  himself  with  difficulty,  advanced  to  the  footlights,  and, 
in  thick  tones  of  virtuous  indignation,  asked,  "What's  the  meaning  of 
this?  Don't  all  of  you  know  that  I'm  a  drunken  individual?"  The  un- 
conscious doitble  aileiulre  delighted  his  hearers,  and  peace  was  restored. 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  H 

with  extorted  patronage  or  hearty  grumbling.  "He 
(Dickens)  has  been  able  to  sit  through  'Nickleby,'  and 
see  a  kind  of  merit  in  some  of  the  actors.  Mr.  Yates  had 
a  sufficiently  humorous  meaning  in  his  wildest  extrava- 
gance, and  Mr.  0.  Smith  could  put  into  his  queer  angular 
oddities  enough  of  a  hard  dry  pathos  to  conjure  iqy  shad- 
oics  at  least  of  Mantalini  and  Newman  Noggs  ;  and  even 
Dickens,  in  the  letter  that  amazed  me  by  telling  of  his  visit 
to  the  theatre,  was  able  to  praise  the  skilful  management 
and  dressing  of  the  boys,  the  capital  manner  and  speech 
of  Fanny  Squeers,  the  dramatic  representation  of  her 
card-party  in  Squeers's  parlor,  the  careful  making-up  of 
all  the  peoj^le,  and  the  exceedingly  good  tableaux  formed 
from  Browne's  sketches.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Keeley's  first  appear- 
ance beside  the  fire,  and  all  the  rest  of  Smike,  was  ex- 
cellent." This,  x>ttce  Mr.  Forster,  is  surely  high  praise 
from  an  author  in  Dickens's  position ;  but  that  he  not 
merely  was  sulkily  content,  as  Mr.  Forster  would  have 
us  believe,  but  was  really  heartily  gratified  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  play  was  produced  and  acted,  the  fol- 
lowing letter,  written  by  him  to  my  father,  and  now  in 
my  possession,  will  prove  : 

"4S  Dongbty  Street,  Thursday  Morning. 

"  My  dear  Sir, — I  am  very  glad  indeed  tliat '  Nickleby '  is  doing  so  well. 
You  are  right  about  the  popularity  of  the  work,  for  its  sale  has  left  even 
that  of  '  Pickwick  '  far  behind. 

"  My  general  objection  to  the  adaptation  of  any  unfinished  work  of  mine 
simply  is  that,  being  badly  done  and  worse  acted,  it  tends  to  vulgarize  the 
characters,  to  destroy  or  weaken  in  the  minds  of  those  who  see  them  the 
impressions  I  have  endeavored  to  create,  and  consequently  to  lessen  the 
after-interest  in  their  progress.  No  mich  objection  can  exist  for  a  moment 
where  the  thing  is  so  admirably  done  iii  every  respect  as  you  have  done  it  in 
this  instance.  I  felt  it  an  act  of  common  justice,  after  seeing  the  piece, 
to  withdraw  all  objection  to  its  publication,  and  to  say  thus  much  to  the 
parties  interested  in  it  without  reserve.  If  you  can  spare  us  a  private  box 
for  next  Tuesday,  I  shall  be  much  obliged  to  you.  If  it  be  on  the  stage, 
8o  much  the  better,  as  I  shall  be  really  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  tell  Mrs. 
Keeley  and  0.  Smith  how  much  I  appreciate  their  Smike  and  Newman 
Noggs.  I  put  you  out  of  the  question  altogether,  for  that  glorious  Man- 
talini is  beyond  ail  praise.        Faithfully  yours,  Chajeu.es  Dickens." 

If  Mr.  Forster  was  "  amazed  "  by  a  letter  from  Dickens 
mentioning  his  visit  to  the  Adelphi,  how  much  more 


12  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

would  he  have  been  "amazed"  had  he  seen  the  preceding 
letter  of  praise,  in  which  a  second  visit  is  suggested? 
and  to  what  pitch  would  his  amazement  have  reached 
if  he  had  known  that  I  have  a  further  letter  from  Dick- 
ens to  my  father,  offering  himself  to  dramatize  "Oliver 
Twist "  for  the  Adelphi?    The  letter  runs  thus : 

"  Supposing  we  arrange  preliminaries  to  our  mutual  satisfaction,  I  pro- 
pose to  dramatize  '  Oliver  Twist '  for  the  first  night  of  next  season. 

"  I  have  never  seen  Mrs.  Hounor,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection ;  but, 
from  the  mere  circumstance  of  her  being  a  Mrs.,  I  should  say  at  once  that 
she  was  '  a  many  sizes  too  large '  for  Oliver  Twist.  If  it  be  played  by  a 
female,  it  should  be  a  very  sharp  giil  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  not  more,  or 
the  character  would  be  an  absurdity.  I  don't  see  the  possibility  of  any 
other  house  doing  it  before  your  next  opening  night.  If  they  do,  it  must 
be  done  in  a  very  extraordinary  manner,  as  the  story,  unlike  that  of  '  Pick- 
wick,' is  an  involved  and  complicated  one.  I  am  quite  satisfied  that  no 
one  can  have  heard  what  I  mean  to  do  with  the  different  characters  in  the 
end,  inasmuch  as,  at  present,  I  don't  quite  know  myself;  so  we  are  toler- 
ably safe  on  that  head.  I  am  quite  sure  that  your  name  as  the  Jew,  and 
mine  as  the  author,  would  knock  any  other  attempts  quite  out  of  the  field." 

Surely  the  inference  from  this  is,  that  Dickens  was  by  no 
means  displeased  by  his  dramatic  treatment  at  the  Adel- 
phi. Dickens  had  so  very  frequently  spoken  to  me  in 
enthusiastic  terms  of  my  father's  acting  as  Mantalini,  as 
Fagin,  and  as  Quilp,  and  had  so  often  praised  the  manner 
in  whicli,  under  difficult  circumstances,  the  various  plays 
liad  been  produced  at  the  Adolphi,  that  I  was  highly 
amused  on  the  publication  of  Mr.  Forster's  statement, 
and  determined  at  my  own  time  to  take  an  opportunity 
of  refuting  it. 

O.  Smith,  the  actor  referred  to  in  this  correspondence, 
was  a  singular  man.  Ilis  name  was  Richard  Smith,  but 
winning  renown  in  the  commencement  of  his  career  by 
liis  performance  of  Obi,  in  a  drama  called  "Three-Fin- 
gered Jack,"  he  was  dubbed  O.  Smith,  to  distinguish  him 
from  the  multifarious  ])ossessors  of  liis  patronymic,  and 
remained  thus  known  throughout  his  life.*     Condemned 


*  It  was  Sheridan  Knowles  who,  in  his  half -blundering,  half -witty, 
wholly  Iri.sh  way,  told  0.  Smith  he  was  "always  mistaking  him  for  his 
numcHuke,  T.  P.  Cooke." 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  13 

by  an  odd  fate  to  the  perpetual  portrayal  of  murderers, 
robbers,  pirates,  etc.,  in  private  life  "  he  was  the  mildest- 
mannered  man,"  well  read  and  informed,  a  clever  water- 
color  artist,  with  an  air  of  old  -  fashioned  courtesy  not 
detracted  from  by  a  slight  deafness.  He  played  demons 
and  gnome-kings  as  well  as  villains,  and  once  based  an 
application  to  my  father  for  increase  of  salary  on  the  fact 
that,  owing  to  his  being  so  constantly  in  dangerous  posi- 
tions, in  the  midst  of  fire,  going  up  and  down  traps,  etc., 
the  life-insurance  companies  would  only  accept  him  at  a 
"  hazardous  "  premium.  His  demoniac  laugh,  a  deep  bass 
"Ho,  ho  !"  was  very  effective — 

"  He  laughed,  as  Mr.  0.  Smith  laughs, 
An  inward  double-knock." 

Gilbert  d  BeckeVs  Almanack  of  tlie  Month. 

The  visitors  to  the  Adelphi  in  those  days  would  seem 
to  have  been  not  only  numerous,  but  distinguished. 
Among  my  father's  correspondence  I  find  many  letters 
from  Miss  Mitford,  Miss  Jane  Porter,  Lady  Morgan,  Mrs. 
Norton,  Miss  Pardoe,  L.  E.  L.,  Lady  Blessington,  George 
Colman,  Rev.  G.  Croly,  Haynes  Bayly,  Sheridan  Knowles, 
Maginn,  Sam  Warren,  Theodore  Hook,  Thomas  Hood, 
Barham,  Talfourd,  Moore,  Luttrell,  James  and  Horace 
Smith,  Edmund  Kean,  Charles  Kemble,  Macready,  H.R.H. 
the  Duke  of  Sussex  (with  a  present  of  a  gold  snuffbox), 
Count  d'Orsay,  Lords  Chesterfield,  Clanricarde,  Adolphus 
Fitzclareuce,  Fitzhardinge,  Castlereagh,  etc.,  all  express- 
ing their  thanks  for  gratification  received  or  expected  at 
his  hands. 

Here  is  Dr.  Maginn's  note,  sent  with  a  pear : 

"  A  Pear  fresh  gathered  from  Nelson's  pear-tree  presents  its  compli- 
ments to  Mrs.  Yates. 

"  Though  not  inviting  to  the  eye, 

Take  me  as  plucked  from  off  the  tree 

Planted  by  him  whose  battle-cry 
Was  herald  still  of  Victory. 

Fit  offering  therefore,  as  I  ween, 

For  her  who  is  the  Victorine." 


U  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LOXDON   LIFE. 

Kean's  letter  is  very  characteristic : 

"January  4, 1831. 
"  Deab  Yates, — Can  I  have  my  usual  box  to-night  ?     I  stay  in  London 
but  a  couple  of  days,  and  it  will  be  an  indulgence.     I  detest  mixing  with 
the  canaille.     I  like  tJie  public's  money^  but  despise  tliem. 

"  Yours  truly,  Edmund  Kkan." 

Miss  Jane  Porter,  possibly  not  much  read  by  the  pres- 
ent generation,  but  greatly  admired  by  Scott  and  loved 
by  our  fathers  and  mothers  for  her  "  Thaddeus  of  War- 
saw "  and  "  Scottish  Chiefs,"  wants  "  an  engagement  for 
a  person  in  whom  I  am  greatly  interested.  She  was  a 
leading  comic  actress  in  a  small  but  respectable  company, 
which  used  to  come  annually  to  Thames  Ditton  (!),  and 
perform  there  during  five  or  six  years  of  our  residence  in 
the  neighborhood.  My  venerable  mother,  and  other  most 
excellent  heads  of  the  families  about,  always  patronized 
the  company  because  of  the  Worthiness  of  character  as 
individuals."  Miss  Porter's  description  of  her  protegee's 
personal  appearance  is  delightful :  "  She  is  now  a  middle- 
aged  woman,  of  a  slight,  airy  form,  a  quick  and  pleasing 
countenance,  though  not  handsome,  a  pleasant  and  clear 
voice  and  genteel  enunciation.  She  would  be  capable  to 
undertake  all  old  or  elderly  female  characters  in  comedy, 
or,  indeed,  from  the  still  juvenile  appearance  of  her  figure 
and  lively  countenance,  chambermaids  and  the  like  would 
not  come  amiss  to  her.  She  could  also  lead  choruses  of 
j)easantry,  etc." 

Miss  Mitford  asks  :  "  Wliat  would  be  the  remuneration 
for  a  drama  such  as  you  wish?  .  .  .  Supposing  we  agree 
as  to  terms,  would  the  enclosed  Incendiary  story  answer 
for  tlie  serious  i)art  of  a  2)icce?  I  tliink  it  would  ;  that  is 
to  say,  I  think  it  miglit  admit  of  some  good  scenes  for 
Mrs.  Yates,  whom  I  liave  never  liad  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
perform,  but  who  is  said  by  every  one  to  be  a  most  sweet, 
affecting,  and  natural  actress.  ...  I  saw  a  part  of  the 
'  Wreck  Ashore'  at  Reading,  but  could  not  sit  it  out.  I 
was  so  terril^ly  nervous  tliat  tlie  motion  of  the  hiteh  and 
(4rampus's  face  through  the  window  seemed  to  me  like 
actual  house-breaking,  of  'which  I  have  great  dread.     I 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  15 

have  an  equal  aversion  to  guns  and  explosions  of  all 
kinds,  which  may  account  for  my  never  having  been  to 
any  small  theatre  except  the  Haymarket." 

Every  one  seems  to  have  had  what  the  Americans  call 
"an  axe  to  grind."  Count  d'Orsay  writes:  "J'ai  un 
melodrame  en  deux  actes  a  vous  offrir,  ecrit  par  un  des 
mes  amis :  I'histoire  est  tiree  d'un  ouvrage  de  George 
Sand,  un  des  raeilleurs  auteurs  Franyais  de  notre  epoque  : 
c'est  intitule  'L'Uscocco.'  Les  caract^res  sont  bien  adaptes 
a  la  reunion  des  bons  acteurs  que  vous  possedez  h  I'Adel- 
l^hi ;  et  si  vous  pensez  que  cela  puisse  vous  convenir  je 
vous  enverrai  le  manuscrit." 

Miss  Pardoe  writes,  offering  to  translate  a  play  which 
has  just  been  produced  in  Paris  by  Mile,  Mars,  and  which 
is  exactly  suited  to  my  mother's  style  :  "  I  am  certain  that 
in  the  role  of  Mile.  Mars  you  will  turn  all  the  heads  in 
London,  as  she  turned  all  those  in  Paris."  The  piece  was 
called  "Louise  de  Lignerolles,"  and  was,  I  fancy,  played 
at  the  Adelphi.  Another  play  by  Miss  Pardoe,  which  I 
recollect  seeing,  was  called  "Agnes  St.  Aubyn,  the  Wife 
of  Two  Husbands."  I  think  my  friend  Mr.  Dion  Bouci- 
cault  must  have  seen  this  piece  before  writing  "Hunted 
Down." 

My  memories  of  that  queer  little  private  house  over 
the  theatre,  and  the  visitors  to  its  drawing-room,  from 
the  window  of  which  I  saw  the  Guards — I  think  in  white 
fatigue -jackets — marching  through  the  Strand  on  their 
way  to  embarkation  for  Canada  in  1837,  and  was  shown 
the  reflection  of  the  flames  of  the  burning  Royal  Ex- 
change in  the  following  year,  are  very  clear.  I  remember 
the  elder  Mathews,  a  wizen  dark  man,  with  one  high 
shoulder,  a  distorted  mouth,  a  lame  leg,  and  an  irritable 
manner.  He  took  little  notice  of  me  save  on  one  occa- 
sion, when  a  pet  little  black  dog,  which  always  accom- 
panied him,  sprang  up  and  bit  me  on  the  cheek,  and  then 
nothing  could  exceed  his  remorseful  interest.  I  remem- 
ber Theodore  Hook,  bald  and  bluff,  given,  it  was  under- 
stood, to  bumptiousness  and  swagger  in  some  houses,  but 
always  pleasant  in  ours.  He  never  needed  pressing,  but 
would  sing  his  impromptu  songs  and  cut  his  jokes  with 


16  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

boyish  glee.  One  of  these,  and  a  hitherto  unpublished 
one,  I  think,  my  mother  used  to  tell.  A  few  friends  were 
seated  round  our  dinner-table  when  a  certain  Mr.  Rosen- 
hegen  called  to  see  my  father.  He  looked  into  the  room, 
but,  seeing  the  company,  withdrew  at  once.  "There, 
Hook,"  said  a  great  friend  of  his,  W.  S.  Streatfield,  "  you 
couldn't  make  a  rhyme  to  that  man's  name!"  "Couldn't 
I?"  said  Hook;  and  with  scarce  a  moment's  delay  he 
called  out : 

"  Mr.  Rosenhegen ! 
Pop  your  nose  in  again !" 

Hook,  however,  must  have  been  a  desperate  snob,  and  the 
sketch  of  him  as  Wagg,  in  "  Pendennis,"  would  not  seem 
to  be  over-colored.  One  day  at  a  dinner-party  at  the 
Adelphi,  my  mother  overboard  him  say  to  his  neighbor, 
"I  wonder  whether  they've  iced  the  claret?"  She  at 
once  addressed  him  laughingly,  "  Don't  be  afraid,  Mr. 
Hook  ;  Mr.  Hodgson's  butler  has  charge  of  the  wine  !" 
Mr.  Hodgson  was  one  of  Hook's  "  patrons,"  and  a  friend 
in  many  ways,  so  Hook  collapsed. 

I  remember  my  good  friend  Lord  Alfred  Paget,  then 
a  very  young  man,  standing,  measuring  heights,  back  to 
back  with  M.  Biliin,  tallest,  best  -  natured,  and  stupidest 
of  Belgian  giants,  then  ])laying  an  engagement  at  the 
theatre.  I  remember  wandering  into  the  room  and  shriek- 
ing with  terror  at  seeing  a  singular  creature  creeping  over 
the  chairs  and  tables  with  wondrous  agility.  This  was  a 
Mr.  Harvey  Leach,  professionally  known  as  Signor  Hervio 
Nano,  a  dwarf,  or  rather  a  truncated  being,  with  hand- 
some head,  fine  torso,  immense  muscular  strength  in  the 
arms,  and  no  legs  to  speak  of.  He  played  in  a  piece 
called  "The  Gnome  Fly,"  in  which,  made  up  as  a  fly,  he 
crawled  over  the  proscenium,  and,  I  think,  journeyed  on 
wires  from  the  gallery  to  the  stage.  I  reinemhi-r  James 
Smith,  with  an  ivory-handled  crutch-stick,  and  his  brother 
Horace,  coming  to  read  the  dramatic  version  of  his  novel, 
"Jane  Lomax,"  whicli  he  had  prepared  for  my  mother. 
Ainsworth,  then  a  singularly  liandsome  man  of  the 
D'Orsay  order,  was  a  fretpu'ut  visitor  in  the  "Jack  Shep- 
pard  "  days,  and  Alfred  Crowquill.     I  can  also  remember 


PARENTAGE  AND  CHILDHOOD.  17 

Alfred  Bunn,  and  always  thought  that  Thackeray  must 
have  sketched  the  portrait  of  Mr.  Dolphin,  the  manager, 
which  appears  in  "  Pendennis,"  from  him.*  John  Bra- 
ham,  a  very  small  Jewish  man  in  a  black  wig,  I  remem- 
ber as  a  visitor ;  and  I  have  seen  Miss  Romer,  the  original 
"  Bohemian  Girl,"  there.  I  have  heard  Mrs.  Honey  —  a 
very  lovely  woman — Mrs.  Waylett,  and  Mrs.  Keeley  "  try- 
ing over  "  their  songs  at  the  little  piano. 

Walking  with  my  father  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Houses  of  Parliament,  he  was  spoken  to,  on  the  same  after- 
noon, by  the  great  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell.  He  bade  me  remember  the  circumstance  when  I 
"grew  up."  The  appearance  of  each  of  these  men — the 
duke  with  his  buttoned  blue  coat,  white  duck  trousers, 
and  high  stock,  with  a  buckle  showing  at  the  back  of  his 
neck,  and  O'Connell,  with  a  round,  good-humored,  thor- 
oughly Irish  face,  and  a  springy,  jaunty  walk — is  perfectly 
vivid  in  my  memory.  Mr.  George  Jones,  R.  A.,  a  painter 
of  battle-pieces,  etc.,  who  died  some  years  ago,  specially 
prided  himself  on  his  resemblance  to  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, and  used  to  "  dress  up  to  the  character."  Some 
one  mentioned  the  likeness  to  the  duke,  and  added,  "  It 
must  be  great,  for  people  in  the  street  often  speak  to  him 
for  your  Grace."  "Very  strange,"  muttered  the  great 
man;  "no  one  ever  spoke  to  me  for  Mr.  Jones  !" 

Connected  with  the  Adelphi  house  are  my  recollections 
of  Liston,  with  his  face  like  a  grotesque  mask,  pendulous 
cheeks,  snub  nose,  and  fishy  eyes — a  very  dull  man,  as  he 

*  Here  is  a  characteristic  letter  from  Bunn  to  my  father : 

"  Mt  dear  Fred, — "With  taste  and  judgment  '  both  strong  against  the 
deed,'  I  have  resolved  on  coming  down  to  the  blackguard  level  to-morrow, 
and  the  wonders  of  old  Drury  Lane,  the  glories  of  its  pageantries,  the 
splendor  of  its  decorations,  aristocracy,  dancers,  foreigners,  etc.,  are  all 
going,  going  for  the  small  sum  of  4s.  to  the  boxes,  2.s.  to  the  pit,  and  Is.  to 
the  gallery. 

<'  To  Mr.  Garrick,  Mr.  Sheridan,  Mr.  John  Kemble,  Mr.  Kean,  et  hoc  genus 
omne,  I  cry, '  Thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it.'        Ever  thine,       A.  Bunn." 

On  the  back  of  this  letter  is  pencilled  in  Bunn's  hand,  "  George  Robins 
was  yesterday  walked  out  of  both  the  general  and  sub-committees  of  Drury 
Lane.     He  will  call  it  resigning^  but  they  call  it  kicked^ 


18  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

seemed  to  me;  of  George  Rodwell,  the  composer  of  much 
beautiful  music,  but  who  gained  his  barrel-organ  celebrity 
by  "  Jolly  Nose  "  and  "  Nix  my  dolly,  pals,"  two  songs  in 
"Jack  Sheppard;"  of  M.  Sola,  a  strange,  blear-eyed  old 
foreigner,  in  some  way  connected  with  music,  but  who  was 
principally  engaged  in  selling  bargains  of  all  kinds  to  his 
friends.  He  sold  a  watch  to  my  mother,  with  the  curious 
recommendation,  "He  ver'  good  vatch;  you  vear  him  two 
year,  and  then  sell  him  again."  And  I  can  distinctly  i*ec- 
ollect  meeting  him  in  the  Strand,  vainly  trying  to  conceal 
a  full-sized  drawing-room  looking-glass  under  the  folds  of 
his  scanty  blue  cloak. 

To  us  would  come  across,  from  the  house  on  Adelphi 
Terrace,  Miss  Maria  B.  Hawes,  then  in  the  first  flush  of 
her  success  as  an  oratorio  singer  ;  and  from  her  pretty 
cottage  ornee,  The  Rosery,  in  Old  Brompton — now  pulled 
down,  and  with  a  row  of  stucco  houses  standing  "  where 
once  the  garden  smiled  " — would  arrive  my  earliest  liter- 
ary friend,  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall,  bringing  for  my  delectation  a 
copy  of  her  annual,  "  The  Juvenile  Budget,"  in  which  she 
and  Mrs.  Hofland,  Miss  Pardoe  and  Miss  Jewsbury,  wrote 
most  charming  stories  for  children.  To  a  hurried  consul- 
tation would  come  Cliarles  Tomkins  and  Tom  Pitt,  the 
scene-painters,  in  their  canvas  clothes,  splashed  with  dabs 
of  color;  or  Gallott  the  prompter;  or  Sam  Lover,  with  a 
ballad  for  Mrs.  Fitzwilliam  or  Miss  Fortescue,  now  Lady 
Gardner,  on  whose  performance  of  Baniaby  Rudge  Dick- 
ens used  "to  dwell  with  a  thorough  liking;"  or  Edmund 
Byng,  my  eccentric  godfather  ;  or  Lord  Clanricarde,  who 
in  after-years  proved  in  the  kindest  and  handsomest  man- 
ner that  he  had  not  forgotten  the  old  days  of  fun  and 
frolic  iu  "  the  little  Adelphi." 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  19 


CHAPTER  n. 

YOUTH    AND    EDUCATION. 

It  was  in  the  "  old  Adelphi  house,"  as  we  used  to  call 
it,  the  private  portion  of  the  theatre-preaiises,  No.  411 
Strand,  that  I  received  the  elementary  portion  of  my  edu- 
cation, being  taught  "  my  letters  "  by  my  aunt,  Miss  Eliza 
Yates,  my  father's  unmarried  sister,  who  lived  with  us, 
and  in  whom  I  found  my  chief  playmate  and  companion. 
What  with  incessant  acting  and  very  frequent  rehearsals 
— for  the  "  runs  "  of  pieces,  now  so  common,  were  abso- 
lutely unknown  in  those  days,  and  the  entertainment  was 
constantly  changed — my  mother  had  in  a  great  measure 
to  delegate  her  household  and  maternal  duties  to  her 
sister-in-law,  who  fulfilled  them  with  much  affectionate 
devotion.  My  "  aunt  Eliza  "  is  associated  with  my  earliest 
recollections;  under  her  supervision  I  learned  my  alphabet 
from  a  collection  of  large  capital  letters  furnished  by  the 
printer  of  the  theatre,  and  spread  out  on  the  floor,  where 
I  lay.  When  I  had  arrived  at  the  dignity  of  spelling,  I 
used  to  check  my  newly-acquired  accomplishment  by  en- 
deavoring to  read  the  words  on  the  omnibuses  which 
passed  the  window  in  such  numbers;  my  great  desire,  as 
well  as  that  of  my  kind  instructress,  being  that  I  should 
acquit  myself  well  in  the  eyes  of  my  grandmother,  a  rather 
severe  old  lady,  who  was  also  a  resident  member  of  the 
family.  My  recollections  of  her  are  of  the  faintest;  but 
I  have  an  idea  that  she  rather  sat  upon  the  little  house- 
hold, that  she  was  in  the  position  of  one  who  had  seen 
better  days,  and  that  she  despised  the  theatre,  while  liv- 
ing on  its  proceeds.  I  remember,  too,  that  frequent  card- 
parties  had  to  be  given  for  her  amusement,  and  that  she 
did  not  scruple  to  express  her  astonishment  and  displeas- 
ure at  the  singular  conduct  of  my  father  and  mother,  who, 


20  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

coming  in  utterly  exhausted  from  their  work,  preferred 
going  to  rest  to  taking  a  "hand  at  cards"  with  the  old 
lady's  friends. 

There  was,  in  truth,  but  little  chance  of  rest  for  my  fa- 
ther in  those  days,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his 
early  death  was  mainly  attributable  to  the  perpetual 
work,  worry,  and  excitement  in  which  his  life  was  passed. 
To  be  foremost  in  the  race,  to  beat  his  compeers  in  the 
prodiiction  of  any  novelty  was  his  great  object,  and  many 
a  time  had  he  to  pay  for  his  rashness  and  want  of  delib- 
eration. On  one  occasion  a  rumor  reached  London  that 
a  great  success  had  been  achieved  in  Paris  by  the  per- 
formance of  a  set  of  Hindoo  dancers,  called  "Les  Baya- 
deres," who  were  supposed  to  be  priestesses  of  a  certain 
sect;  and  the  London  theatrical  managers  were  at  once 
on  the  qui  vive  to  secure  the  new  attraction.  Three  of 
them — Laporte,  of  the  Italian  Opera ;  Alfred  Bunn,  of 
Drury  Lane  ;  and  my  father  —  set  out  for  Paris  much 
about  the  same  time  ;  it  was  diligence-traxelling  or  post- 
ing in  those  days,  and  the  man  with  the  loosest  purse- 
Btrings  went  the  fastest.  My  father  had  concluded  his 
arrangement  with  the  "  Bayaderes "  before  his  brother 
managers  arrived  in  Paris.  Shortly  afterwards,  the  Hin- 
doo priestesses  appeared  at  the  Adelphi.  They  were  ut- 
terly uninteresting,  wholly  unattractive.  My  father  lost 
£2000  by  the  speculation  ;  and  in  the  family  they  were 
known  as  the  "Buy-em-dears"  ever  after. 

Novelty  was  imperative,  no  matter  what  shape  it  might 
take.  I  have  already  mentioned  Bihin  the  giant  and  Har- 
vey Leach  the  dwarf, but  have  said  nothing  of  the  "real 
water,"  which  at  one  time  was  contained  in  an  enormous 
tank  under  the  flooring  of  the  stage,  and,  like  Mr.  Crura- 
mles's  pump  and  tub,  had  a  drama  written  for  it  :  "  Die 
Hexen  am  Rhein  "  (The  Witches  of  the  Rhine),  a  medi- 
aeval, romantic  i>lay,  in  the  course  of  which  tlie  hero 
plunged  into  the  tank,  and  swam  about  in  sight  of  tlie 
audience.  Possibly  in  conuc-ction  with  the  tank  of  real 
water,  and  certainly  in  search  of  novelty,  my  father  seems 
to  have  offered  an  engagement  to  Grace  Darling  of  the 
Longstoiie  light-house,  the  heroine  of  the  wreck  of  the  I^hr- 


YOUTH  AND   EDUCATION.  21 

farshire,  as  a  letter  from  her,  among  his  papers,  thanks 
him  for  his  proposals,  which  she  is  compelled  to  decline, 
as  acceptance  would  be  against  the  wishes  of  the  Duke 
of  Northumberland  and  the  "ladies  and  gentlemen"  who 
have  subscribed  to  purchase  her  "  a  comfortable  annuity." 

Another  proof  of  my  father's  readiness  to  seize  on  pop- 
ular topics  is  to  be  found  in  his  production  of  a  version 
of  "  Ten  Thousand  a  Year,"  a  novel  then  creating  consid- 
erable sensation,  dramatized  by  its  author,  Samuel  War- 
ren, Q.C.,  from  whom  there  is  a  very  characteristic  letter, 
mentioning  that  "notwithstanding  his  engagement  in 
three  most  important  cases  at  Westminster,"  he  hopes  to 
be  in  time  for  rehearsal. 

But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  success  which  attended 
the  little  Adelphi  Theatre  in  those  days  was  the  adapta- 
bility of  its  company  for  developing  its  "  great  special- 
ity," melodrama,  and  more  especially  of  the  "Adelphi 
drama,"  which  was  compounded  by  Buckstone  out  of  in- 
gredients, some  of  which  were  original,  but  most  derived 
from  pieces  of  the  Ambigu  or  the  Porte  St.  Martin. 
Chief  in  interest  and  attraction  among  these  were  "  Vic- 
torine"  and  "The  Wreck  Ashore."  "Victorine"  was 
the  first  of  those  pieces  in  which  a  large  portion  of  the 
action  occurs  during  a  dream,  and  which — modem  play- 
goers will  remember  "  Uncle  Dick's  Darling "  as  an  ex- 
ample— have  always  been  successful.  But  of  all  melo- 
dramas which  I  have  seen,  "  The  Wreck  Ashore "  bears 
away  the  palm.  There  was  one  scene,  where  two  fright- 
ened sisters,  played  by  my  mother  and  ]Mi-s.  Fitzwilliam, 
in  a  lonely  cottage  on  the  marshes,  see  the  latch  of  the 
door  slowly  lifted,  where  the  absorbing  interest  was  pos- 
itively painful.     "  The  Rake  and  his  Pupil,"  *  "  Henriette 

*  "The  Rake  and  his  Pupil"  was  before  my  theatre-going  time;  but  I 
had  heard  the  name  when  a  child,  and  it  was  brought  to  my  mind  many 
years  afterwards  in  a  very  singular  way.  I  was  going  to  dine  with  Cliarles 
Mathews  in  the  early  spring  of  1869,  and  was  making  my  way  from  the 
Gloucester  Road  Station,  where  I  had  alighted,  and  which  had  not  been 
long  opened,  across  a  new  and  unformed  district,  as  a  short  cut  to  Pelham 
Crescent,  where  C.  J.  M.  resided,  when  I  saw  a  man  pacing  up  and  down 
before  a  small  tavern.     He  was  muttering  aloud ;  and  as  I  came  upon  hiiu 


22  FIFTY  YEAUS   OF   LONDOX   LIFE. 

the  Forsaken,"  "  Isabel ;  or,  Woman's  Life,"  were  all  of 
the  same  category,  and  written  by  the  same  author,  whose 
most  successful  work  of  all,  "  The  Green  Bushes,"  was 
not  produced  until  ten  years  later,  and  for  quite  a  differ- 
ent group  of  actors. 

In  connection  with  this  subject,  it  will  be  interesting  to 
note  the  extraordinary  difference  between  the  jDrices  re- 
alized by  dramatic  authors  for  their  work  in  the  present 
day  and  fifty  years  ago.  I  make  the  following  extract 
from  a  letter  of  Buckstone's  to  my  father  :  "As  we  have 
had  no  decided  arrangement  about  'The  Rake,'  and  as 
whatever  terms  we  can  agree  upon  about  that  piece  will 
influence  my  future  doings,  I  wish  to  state  a  few  matters 
for  you  to  think  about  :  £50  was  mentioned  by  you  for 
it,  and  afterwards  an  additional  £10  for  securing  the  act- 
ing copyright  in  the  provinces  for  twelve  months.  I  was 
allowed  £60  for  'Henriette,'  and  really,  with  the  prices 
I  can  now  command,  I  am  working  at  a  very  low  rate  in 
lietting  you  have  three-act  dramas  at  that  sum.  For  a 
successful  three-act  play  you  ought,  I  tliink,  to  afford  me 
£70,  such  sum  securing  to  you  the  sole  acting  right  for- 
ever in  London,  and  to  you  alone  for  one  year,  or,  say,  to 
the  1st  October  following  its  production."  And  in  an- 
other letter,  in  1839  :  "I  will  do  your  piece  for  the  open- 
ing, and  a  new  three-act  drama  for  Mrs.  Yates,  company, 
and  self,  for  my  old  terms  for  the  pair,  viz.,  two  seventies. 
I  really  cannot  say  less.     I  now  get  £100  for  a  three-act 

I  distinctly  lieard  him  pronounce  tlic  name  "  Frcdericli  Yates."  I  stopped, 
and  aslted  him  witat  name  he  had  mentioned.  He  at  once  repeated  "  Fred- 
crick  Yates  ;"  then  added,  "  the  cleverest  actor  I  ever  saw,  sir !  By  far 
the  cleverest !  You  never  saw  him,  sir;  you're  too  young!  But  at  the 
AdL]|)lii  Theatre,  in  'The  Rake  and  his  Pupil,'  to  see  him  act,  to  hear 
him  repeat '  The  Baron  Somebody  with  his  hump,  and  the  Baroness  Some- 
body a  frump,'  it  was  magnificent !"  A  little  further  ccuiversatiou  proved 
that  the  poor  fellow  was  a  lunatic.  lie  enlarged  niton  the  subject  of  his 
wrongs,  specially  his  having  been  incareerati'd,  and  would  not  revert  to 
the  theatre.  But  it  was  a  most  wonderful  thing  that  I,  who  alone  of  all 
living  people  would  have  had  the  slightest  interest  in  Frederick  Yates, 
should  have  been  passing  aa  he  uttered  the  name.  I  told  the  story  the 
next  day  to  Dickens,  who  was  very  much  struck  by  (he  coincidence,  and 
used  frequently  to  refer  to  it. 


YOUTH   AND   EDUCATION.  2:^ 

piece,  when  it  only  runs  a  few  nights.  I  bring  out  a  full 
three-act  comedy  at  the  Ilaymarket  immediately  on  the 
close  of  Covent  Garden,  and  am  now  cogitating  a  farce 
for  Power  and  myself." 

So  we  see  that  at  his  increased  rates  Buckstone  re- 
ceived £70  for  a  three-act  drama,  and  ^10  for  the  pro- 
vincial rights  for  twelve  months.  Now  I  have  been  fur- 
nished by  a  worthy  friend  of  mine,  a  writer  of  melodrama 
of  the  present  day,  whose  name,  for  obvious  reasons,  I 
shall  not  mention,  with  a  return  of  the  fees  which  he  has 
received  for  one  piece  alone,  which  at  the  time  of  writing 
are  within  £150  of  a  total  of  te7i  thousand  pounds,  2in^ 
which  are  still  rolling  in  at  the  rate  of  £100  a  week  !  In 
this  return,  America,  really  unknown  in  earlier  days  as  a 
money  -  producer  for  the  English  dramatist,  figures  for 
£800  more  than  London  ;  the  provinces,  valued  by  Buck- 
stone  at  a  £10  note,  yield  nearly  £3000  ;  while  Australia, 
at  that  time  chiefly  known  as  a  receptacle  for  convicts, 
yields  more  than  double  the  amount  originally  paid  by 
my  father  for  the  whole  acting  copyright.  Buckstone's 
mention  of  Power  in  his  letter  reminds  me  that  I  once 
accompanied  my  father  when  he  went  to  call  on  Tyrone 
Power  on  some  business  matter,  and  that  when  in  Liver- 
pool, during  our  holidays,  we  went  over  the  President, 
the  American  steamer,  which  was  ultimately  lost,  with 
Power  on  board.  I  remember  a  line  in  a  newspaper  of 
the  day  :  "  America  has  lost  her  President,  and  England 
her  Power." 

I  do  not  suppose  I  could  have  been  more  than  five 
years  old,  when  it  was  determined  to  send  me  to  a  pre- 
paratory school  at  Highgate,  which  was  strongly  recom- 
mended by  my  godfather,  Mr.  Hodgson,  whose  nephews 
had  been  pupils  there.  It  w^as  kept  by  an  English  lad)', 
married  to  a  German  merchant  named  Kieckhofer,  which, 
I  need  scarcely  say,  in  boys'  mouths  at  once  became 
"Kickover";  and  to  her  house  I  was  taken  one  afternoon 
by  my  Aunt  Eliza,  in  a  hackney-coach,  among  the  mouldy 
straw  at  the  bottom  of  which  —  and  which  even  now  I 
seem  to  smell  —  I  cast  myself  down  on  our  journey  up 
Highgate  Hill,  and  implored  to  be  taken  home.     A  state- 


24  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ly  but  kindly  lady  was  Mrs.  Kieckhofer,  presiding  over 
an  admirably-kept  school ;  and  a  jolly  old  German  was 
"old  Kick,"  her  husband,  who  would  call  me  into  his 
dressing-room  and  give  me  pears  or  rose -lozenges,  and 
talk  to  me  of  my  father,  and  sjjecially  of  my  mother — 
the  sweetest  woman  that  over  lived. 

Do  you  remember  in  "Nicholas  Nickleby"  where  the 
newly  -  arrived  little  boy  is  sitting  on  his  play  -  box  ? 
"< That's  Belling,'  said  Mr.  Squeers.  'He's  a  Taunton 
boy,  he  is.'  'Is  he,  indeed?'  said  Mr.  Snawley,  looking  at 
hitii  as  though  he  were  a  natural  curiosity.''^  I  have  so 
often  thought  of  this  passage  in  later  life,  when  reflecting 
on  my  own  early  school-days.  From  the  earliest  I  was 
always  regarded  as  a  natural  curiosity.  It  is,  of  course, 
very  different  now,  when  Thespis  Major  is  the  captain  of 
the  boats  at  Eton,  and  Tommy  Roscius  plays  in  the  Har- 
row Eleven  ;  but  in  those  days  actors,  if  not  a  proscribed 
race,  were  very  seldom  met  with  out  of  such  literary  or 
fast-fashionable  circles  as  were  brought  more  immediate- 
ly into  connection  with  them;  and  their  children  Avere 
not  likely  to  be  found  at  any  upper  or  middle  class  school. 
To  a  previous  generation  belongs  the  story  of  the  alarmed 
village  through  which  ran  the  cry, "  The  lakers  [actors] 
are  coming  !  take  the  linen  off  the  hedge  !"  for  fear  it 
should  be  stolen.  And  I  have  heard  my  grandfather 
mention  his  father  being  followed  by  an  excited  crowd 
through  the  streets  of  Newcastle  with  the  cry,  "Play- 
actor !  play  -  actor !  Smash  his  head  agen  the  wall !" 
Such  amenities  as  these  were  out  of  date  ;  but  actors 
were  so  seldom  seen  off  the  stage  as  to  make  any  of  their 
belongings  special  objects  of  half -comical,  half -compas- 
sionate interest ;  and  to  this  minute  I  can  see  the  nudge 
given,  and  hear  the  whispered  "son  of" — "Adelphi,"as 
I  was  pointed  out  to  the  friends  of  other  boys  Avho  had 
come  to  see  them.  Most  of  these  people — one  of  the  first 
of  them  was  old  Mr.  Gillman  the  surgeon,  the  friend  of 
Coleridge,  who  died  at  llighgatc  in  his  house — most  of 
these  people  seemed  pleased  at  the  idea  of  looking  at 
such  an  exceptional  little  jx-rsonage,  and  spoke  a  few 
kind  words   to   me  ;  but  others  would  rather  recoil,  as 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  25 

though  the  taint  of  the  stage  might  be  contagious.  In 
this  place  I  may  mention,  as  characteristic  of  the  times, 
that  a  well  -  known  clergyman,  the  Rev.  Henry  Blunt — 
whose  work  on  the  "  Pentateuch  "  still  survives,  and  who 
was  an  intimate  "friend  as  well  as  a  patient  of  my  uncle, 
Dr.  Yates  —  declined  to  meet  my  father  and  mother  on 
account  of  the  wickedness  of  their  calling. 

I  was  for  four  years  at  Mrs.  Kieckhofer's  preparatory 
school,  where,  I  think,  all  things  considered,  I  must  have 
been  tolerably  happy,  and  where  I  certainly  picked  up  a 
fair  grounding  of  education.  The  disagreeables  which 
remain  in  my  mind  were  connected  with  the  smallness 
of  the  playground  and  the  length  of  the  walks :  a  long 
file  of  boys,  two  and  two,  perambulating  the  country  in 
the  hot  summer's  afternoons,  baked  by  the  sun  and  mad 
with  thirst.  Often  and  often  on  those  occasions  have  I, 
lagging  behind  on  some  pretext,  furtively  lapped  the  wa- 
ter from  the  horse-trough  in  front  of  a  tavern  door,  to 
the  horror  of  the  poor  lady  -  attendant  who  had  us  in 
charge.  Our  guardians  and  instructors  at  Mrs.  Kieck- 
hofer's, with  the  exceptions  of  the  wi'iting  -  master  and 
the  drill-sergeant,  were  all  ladies;  even  our  dancing  was 
acquired  under  female  tuition,  our  teacher  being  a  nice 
brisk  old  lady — a  Miss  Dennet,  who,  with  her  sisters,  had 
once  belonged  to  "  His  Majesty's  Theatre,"  and  who,  I 
think,  made  a  special  favorite  of  me  in  consequence  of 
my  connection  with  "  the  profession." 

Pleasantest  among  these  recollections  are  those  of  the 
"  Saturday  till  Monday  "  holidays,  spent  with  my  mater- 
nal grandfather,  John  Brunton,  to  whom  I  have  before 
made  allusion.  A  retired  actor,  living  on  a  small  pension 
allowed  him  by  his  sister.  Lady  Craven,  he  had  not  the 
faintest  trace  of  his  former  calling,  but  more  resembled 
a  hearty  old  veteran  of  the  Navy,  for  which  profession  he 
had  always  had  a  love,  and  in  which  two  of  his  sons  had 
distinguished  themselves,  one  having  been  second  lieuten- 
ant of  the  Heda  in  Sir  Edward  Parry's  Arctic  Expedi- 
tion. Sedulously  attended  by  an  unmarried  daughter, 
the  old  gentleman  was  perfectly  happy  in  his  little  cot- 
tage at  Kentish  Town  —  then  one  of  the  prettiest  and 

2 


26  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

most  rural  suburbs,  and  very  conveniently  situated  near 
Highgate  —  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of  bis  garden, 
where  he  had  a  specialty  for  dahlias,  in  reading  his 
newspaper,  and  in  holding  his  own  against  a  few  neigh- 
bors at  whist  or  cribbage.  To  me  he  was  the  kindest  and 
most  indulgent  of  men;  the  cheeriest,  jolliest,  most  lova- 
ble of  friends.  He  was  full  of  wonderful  stories,  he  had 
the  heartiest  laugh,  he  smoked  a  church-warden  pipe — 
in  itself  a  laxity  of  morals  which  commanded  my  highest 
childish  admiration. 

We  dined  early — two  o'clock — in  Kentish  Town,  and 
had  the  most  delightful  hot  suppers  at  nine  ;  suppers  of 
sprats  or  kidneys,  or  tripe  and  onions,  with  foaming  por- 
ter and  hot  grog  afterwards — grog  which  I  used  to  sip 
in  a  teas^ioon  from  the  old  gentleman's  tumbler  as  I  sat 
on  his  knee.  Years  afterwards,  when  I  might  have  been 
of  the  mature  age  of  twelve,  at  a  Christmas  gathering  at 
our  house  there  was  some  talk  about  what  were  the 
strongest  or  the  pleasantest  "nightcaps;"  and  I  frightened 
most  of  the  company  by  giving  my  vote  for  gin.  "  Gin, 
sir!"  exclaimed  an  old  maiden  lady  —  my  god -mother; 
"  wliat  a  horrible  idea !  and  from  a  child,  too !  Where 
did  you  ever  taste  gin  ?"  The  old  gentleman  was  present ; 
but  even  in  those  days  I  had  some  savoir  faire.  I  saw 
the  appealing  look  on  his  face,  and  somehow  got  out  of 
the  difficulty. 

In  the  long  summer  evenings,  and  when  his  rheuma- 
tism permitted,  my  grandfather  and  I,  accompanied  by 
his  terrier  "  Vic,"  would  walk  across  the  fields  to  Copen- 
hagen House — a  kind  of  tea-gardens  situated  somewhere 
near  Pentonville — or  farther  afield  to  the  Hornsey  Sluice- 
house,  a  similar  resort,  which  had,  I  fancy,  some  connec- 
tion with  the  New  River,  and  stood  somewhere  in  the  lo- 
cality of  the  present  Finsbury  Park.  Both  these  places 
have  long  since  been  taken  down. 

In  the  Kentish  Town  cottage  I  made  my  first  acquaint- 
ance with  the  journals  of  my  native  land.  There  was  no 
j)enny  press  in  those  days,  and  the  finances  of  the  grand- 
jjatcrnal  establisliment  were  not  in  the  condition  to  afford 
a  high-priced  daily  jiaper.     The  old  gentleman  used  to 


YOUTH  AXD  EDUCATION.  27 

console  himself  ■vnth  the  Morning  Advertiser,  which  -was 
"  lent "  from  the  adjacent  Tally  -  ho  tavern,  and  came 
round  with  the  early  dinner -beer.  But  my  newspaper 
reading  was  confined  to  Sundays,  when  I  devoted  my- 
self to  the  Sioulay  Times  and  the  WeeJchj  Dispatch.  I 
suppose  the  latter  was  at  the  height  of  its  fame  just  then; 
but  the  political  letters  of  "  Publicola  "  and  "  Gracchus  " 
had  naturally  no  attraction  for  me,  and  I  was  far  more 
taken  with  the  glimpses  of  life  revealed  in  the  fashiona- 
ble novels  of  Lady  Blessington,  instalments  of  which  were 
published  by  the  Sunday  Times.  I  have  a  recollection, 
too,  of  seeing  that  notorious  journal,  the  Satirist,  at  Kent- 
ish Town,  and  of  having  read  from  it  an  account  of  a  duel 
between  Lord  Castlereagh  and  the  husband  of  Madame 
Grisi,  the  opera-singer,  whose  name  has  escaped  me.  The 
editor  of  this  journal,  one  Barnard  Gregory,  a  clever  man, 
but  a  desperate  scoundrel,  afterwards  attempted  to  appear 
on  the  stage  as  Hamlet,  but  was  hissed  off  by  the  audi- 
ence, not  on  account  of  his  histrionic  shortcomings,  but 
of  his  private  character. 

A  strange  medley  of  reminiscences  of  the  events  which 
happened  in  my  youth  remains  in  my  mind,  incongruous 
and  disjointed,  and  of  so  diverse  a  character  that  I  often 
wonder  how  I  heard  of  them.  The  marriage  of  the  Queen 
and  Prince  Albert  I  recollect  well ;  and  remember  the 
windows  of  the  stationers'  shops  at  Highgate  filled  with 
a  mild  pictorial  joke,  "The  "Windsor  Pear" — a  represen- 
tation of  a  fine  specimen  of  the  fruit,  with  what  theatrical 
people  would  call  a  "  practical "  rind,  which,  being  lifted, 
discovered  portraits  of  the  Queen  and  Prince  inside.  In 
the  same  shops  the  portrait  of  Cocking,  an  aeronaut,  who 
was  killed  attempting  to  descend  in  a  parachute.  Almost 
my  earliest  terror  was  excited  by  the  narrative  of  the  ad- 
ventures of  " Spring-heeled  Jack"  —  a  ghost  which  had 
been  playing  up  its  pranks,  springing  on  to  the  backs  of 
women  and  nearly  frightening  them  to  death,  and  the 
scene  of  whose  adventures  some  of  the  narrators,  know- 
ing the  advantage  of  local  color,  had  laid  in  Highgate. 
I  believe  there  was  no  foimdation  for  this  statement, 
though  it  caused  a  perfect  panic  among  the  little  boys 


28  FIFTY   YEAES  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

at  Mrs.  Kieckhofer's;  and  it  certainly  was  not  borne  out 
by  another  contemporary  rumor  tliat  the  real  perpetrator 
of  the  practical  joke  was  the  Marquis  of  Waterford,  who 
was  not  likely  to  choose  that  quiet,  and  very  inaccessible, 
suburb  as  the  place  for  his  nightly  exploits. 

But  at  that  time  Lord  Waterford  occupied  a  remarka- 
ble position  in  the  public  eye  as  a  daring  and  dangerous 
practical  joker,  and  every  unexplained  exploit  was  accred- 
ited to  him.  He  was,  it  was  said,  rather  more  than  eccen- 
tric— the  result  of  a  crack  on  the  head  which  he  had  re- 
ceived from  a  nior-genstem,  the  heavy  club  with  which 
the  Stockholm  watchmen  were  armed,  while  carrying  on 
his  nocturnal  vagaries  in  the  Swedish  capital.  He  had, 
it  was  said,  sworn  that  he  would  catch  and  shave  Mr. 
Muntz,  the  member  for  Birmingham,  the  only  English- 
man in  those  days  who  wore  a  large  beard.  Mr.  Muntz, 
on  hearing  of  this  threat,  bought  a  huge  stick,  without 
which  he  was  never  seen  in  public.  The  Earl  of  Cardi- 
gan was  another  nobleman  whose  personality  was  much 
impressed  on  my  childhood,  owing  to  the  notoriety  which 
he  obtained  in  consequence  of  his  quarrels  with  his  broth- 
er officers,  and  the  duels  arising  therefrom.  He  would 
seem  to  have  been  a  man  of  violent  temper  and  offensive 
hauteur;  but  he  Avas  an  intimate  friend  of  my  great- 
uncle,  Colonel  Brunton,  who  had  brought  him  to  our 
house,  and  consequently  I  was  his  sworn  and  only  cham- 
pion at  the  school.  Another  theme  of  discussion  among 
us  children  was  the  adventures  of  the  "  boy  Jones  " — a 
lad  who  was  found  secreted  under  a  sofa  in  Buckingham 
Palace,  and  whose  real  reason  for  being  there,  unless  it 
was  mere  childish  curiosity,  could  never  be  discovered. 

Murders,  too  !  Hoav  we  would  lie  trembling  in  our 
little  beds  as  we  talked  them  over  !  The  dreadful  Green- 
acre,  who  cut  up  the  body  of  his  victim,  carrying  the 
head  Avrapped  up  in  a  handkerchief  on  liis  knees  in  the 
omnibus,  and  who  was  supposed  to  have  nearly  fainted 
with  fright  when,  on  asking  the  conductor  the  fare,  the 
man  replied,  "Sixpence  a  headV — at  least,  so  ran  the 
story;  the  horrible  Daniel  Good, who  had  special  interest 
for  me  from  his  being  a  coachman  at  Roehampton,  where 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  29 

we  had  friends;  and  above  all,  the  monster  Courvoisier, 
the  Swiss  valet,  who  murdered  his  master,  Lord  William 
Russell,  whose  atrocities  are  impressed  upon  me  from 
my  having  heard  them  much  discussed,  more  particularly 
the  style  of  defence  adopted  by  his  counsel,  Charles  Phil- 
ips, at  the  house  of  Mr.  Clarke,  senior  partner  of  my  fa- 
ther's solicitors,  Messrs.  Clarke,  Finmore  &  Fladgate,  of 
Craven  Street,  Strand,  who  resided  on  Highgate  Hill,  and 
with  whom  I  often  spent  the  Sunday  afternoons.  Mr. 
Clarke,  who  was  afterwards  solicitor  to  the  Ordnance  Of- 
fice, was  a  man  very  well  known  in  legal  circles,  and  en- 
tertained largely  ;  he  and  his  family  were  very  kind  to 
me,  and  I  used  hugely  to  enjoy  listening  to  the  talk  of 
the  guests,  with  whom  the  house  was  filled.  The  Eglinton 
tournament,  in  which  Louis  Napoleon,  afterwards  Emper- 
or of  the  French,  took  part ;  the  Chartist  riots  at  New- 
port, headed  by  Frost  and  Williams ;  and  the  frightful 
accident  on  the  Paris  and  Versailles  Railway,  when  all 
the  passengers  in  a  long  train  were  burned  to  death,  the 
doors  on  both  sides  of  the  carriages  being  locked,  so  that 
escape  was  impossible,  are  all  well-remembered  events. 

Even  in  those  my  juvenile  days  I  was  a  kind  of  news- 
provider  for  my  schoolmates,  and  my  return  from  a  cas- 
ual visit  home,  or  to  my  grandfather's,  were  days  looked 
forwai'd  to  by  them,  as  I  was  sure  to  bring  back  some 
stories  which  I  had  hoard  or  read.  I  was  an  eager  de- 
vourer  of  all  kinds  of  literature  from  my  earliest  years, 
and  used  to  read,  stretched  on  the  hearth-rug,  with  my 
book  between  my  elbows,  on  which  I  rested,  or  at  night 
curled  up  in  a  chair,  with  a  candle  and  the  snuffer-tray 
in  close  proximity. 

The  casual  mention  of  the  snuffer-tray,  an  article  never 
seen  by  modern  readers,  brings  to  my  mind  a  thousand 
and  one  changes  in  things,  manners,  and  customs  between 
the  present  time  and  the  days  of  my  childhood,  forty 
years  ago,  which  will  properly  find  mention  in  this  chap- 
ter. In  those  days,  though  there  was  gas  in  the  streets 
and  shops,  and  wax  -  candles  for  the  great  ones  of  the 
earth,  those  who  could  not  afford  such  luxuries  were  com- 
pelled to  seek  their  illumination  in  tallow-candles,  which 


30  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

required  snuffing — i.  e.,  the  removal  of  their  burnt  wicks 
— about  every  quarter  of  an  hour.  "Require  no  snuff- 
ing," was  the  boast  in  the  advertisement  of  the  Palmer's 
composite  candles,  which  were  the  first  improvement, 
and  one  variety  of  which  was,  I  remember,  burned  in  a 
lamp,  forced  down  on  a  spring  into  a  socket,  and  liable 
to  shoot  out  like  a  rocket.  Mention  of  Palmer's  name 
reminds  me  that  there  were  no  so-called  "  night-lights," 
only  a  long  "  farthing  rush-light,"  set  up  in  the  middle  of 
a  huge  tin  light-house  perforated  with  round  holes,  the 
reflection  of  which  on  the  walls  and  ceiling  was  ghostly 
in  the  extreme;  no  lucifers,  but  a  round  tinder-box,  with 
a  flint,  and  a  bit  of  steel  on  which  to  strike  it,  and  a  bun- 
dle of  long  sulphur-tipped  slips  of  wood  called  matches. 
The  lucif er,  or  congreve-match  as  it  was  called,  as  origi- 
nally produced,  was  ignited  by  friction  on  sand-papei-,  and 
had  a  very  unpleasant  smell. 

In  those  days  the  "new  Police,"  as  they  were  still 
called — for  they  had  not  long  been  invented  by  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel  in  supersession  of  the  old  watchmen — were  very 
different  in  appearance  from  our  present  guardians.  They 
wore  swallow-tail  blue  coats,  with  bright  metal  buttons, 
and,  in  summer,  white  duck  trousers  and  white  Berlin 
gloves.  In  lieu  of  helmet  they  had  an  ordinary  chimney- 
pot hat,  only  of  extra  strength  and  stiffness,  and  with  a 
glazed  oil-skin  top.  Their  rivals  in  the  affections  of  do- 
mestic servants,  the  Household  troops,  were  also  very  dif- 
ferently costumed:  in  place  of  the  tunic  they  wore  a  scar- 
let swallow-tail,  with  ridiculous  worsted  epaulettes,  a  huge 
stock  under  the  chin,  white  ducks,  and  a  bear-skin  shako 
almost  twice  the  height  of  that  now  carried.  Neither  po- 
liceman nor  private  soldier  was  permitted  to  grow  raus- 
taclie  or  beard.  The  "  general "  or  country  postman 
wore  a  scarlet  swallow-tail  coat;  the  "two])enny"  or 
London  district  man  a  blue  uniform;  a  collection  for  the 
night  mails  was  made  at  5  p.m.,  by  men  who  paraded  the 
streets,  each  armed  with  a  bell,  which  he  rang  lustily  ; 
and  many  of  the  despatches  of  letters  from  the  head- 
oflicc,  then  in  Loml)ard  Street,  to  the  various  sub-offices 
were  made  by  horse -post,  the  letters  being  enclosed  in 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  31 

leather  valises,  which  were  strapped  behind  the  post- 
boys. 

The  dress  of  the  men  and  women  of  that  time  can  be 
studied  in  the  illustrations  to  "  Nicholas  Niekleby,"  and 
other  contemporary  publications;  "  dandies "  wore  high- 
collared  coats  and  roll-collared  waistcoats,  short  in  the 
waist;  round  their  necks  were  high  stiff  stocks,  with  "  an 
avalanche  of  satin  "  falling  over  the  chest,  and  orna- 
mented with  a  large  and  a  small  pin  connected  with  a  thin 
chain;  and  high,  sharp  -  pointed  —  almost  Gladstonian  — 
shirt-collars.  No  gentleman  could  wear  anything  in  the 
daytime  but  Wellington  boots,  high  up  the  leg,  over 
which  the  trousers  fitted  tightly,  covering  most  of  the 
foot,  and  secured  underneath  by  a  broad  strap.  The 
great-coats  of  those  days  were  no  misnomers.  They  were 
really  enormous  garments,  adorned  with  several  capes  and 
deep  pockets  ;  they  were  Chesterfields,  Petershams,  Tag- 
lionis,  Sylphides;  and  well  I  recollect  some  splendid  driv- 
ing-coats, ornamented  with  enormous  mother-o'-pearl  but- 
tons as  big  as  crown -pieces,  with  pictures  on  them  of 
mail-coaches  going  full  speed,  which  were  exhibited  to 
admiring  crowds  in  the  tailor's  window  in  Regent  Street. 
Afterwards  came  the  neat  paletot,  the  blanket-like  pon- 
cho, the  blue  pilot,  and  the  comfortable  Inverness.  Some 
old  gentlemen  wore  cloaks,  too,  in  my  youth  ;  and  I  have 
a  dim  recollection  of  one  kind,  properly,  I  believe,  called 
roquelaure,  but  known  to  the'  London  public  as  a  "  rocke- 
low." 

Other  personages  of  the  streets,  common  in  those  days, 
have  long  since  disappeared:  the  dustman,  with  his  call 
"Dust  O  !"  and  his  ever-ringing  bell;  the  " buy-a-broom " 
girl,  with  her  Dutch  garb  and  joclUng  voice  ;  the  thin 
Turk,  turban-topped,  and  vending  rhubarb  from  a  tray 
suspended  from  his  neck;  the  Jew  boys  who  hung  about 
the  coach-oftices,  with  their  nets  of  lemons  or  oranges, 
and  were  closely  elbowed  by  the  peripatetic  cutler,  the 
blades  of  whose  knives  were  always  open,  and  constantly 
being  polished  and  sharpened  on  a  tattered  leather  glove. 
Gone  is  the  three-hatted,  bag-bearing  Jew,  with  his  never- 
ceasing  cry  of  "  Old  clo',  clo' !"  gone  are  the  Quakers — 


32  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

the  men  broad-brimmed,  shovel-hatted,  stiff-collared,  and 
gaitered ;  the  women  generally  pretty,  with  hideous  bon- 
nets and  pretty  dove-colored  raiment. 

Well  do  I  recollect  the  introduction,  simultaneously,  I 
imagine,  of  the  hansom  cab— then  called  "  patent-safety  " 
— and  the  four-wheeler.  Before  them  we  had  the  lum- 
bering musty  pair-horse  hackney-coach,  which  was  the  de- 
cayed and  disused  "  chariot "  of  former  greatness,  or  the 
two-wheeled  cabriolet — a  dangerous  vehicle,  with  a  hood 
for  the  fare,  and  a  tiny  perch  by  his  side  for  the  driver, 
and  which  is  to  be  seen  in  the  illustrations  to  "Pick- 
wick," where  Mr.  Jingle  first  appears  on  the  scene.  Peo- 
ple nowadays  will  smile  to  hear  that  for  years  after  their 
introduction  it  was  considered  "fast"  to  ride  in  a  han- 
som, and  its  use  was  tabooed  to  ladies.  There  were  om- 
nibuses, but  nothing  like  the  present  commodious  vehi- 
cles ;  narrow,  cramped,  with  a  seat  across  the  end,  with 
flat  roof,  and  no  "knife-board"  accommodation  outside. 
In  those  early  days  of  railways  the  carriages  had  not  at- 
tained their  present  amount  of  comfort:  the  first-class 
was,  of  course,  an  immense  improvement  on  the  cramped 
and  stuffy  mail-coach;  but  the  second-class  had  no  linings 
or  cushions ;  and  the  third-class  was  little  better  than  a 
cattle-truck.  Of  the  mail-coaches  themselves  I  have  not 
much  recollection,  though,  as  the  "  Great  North  Road  " 
lay  through  Highgate,  I  must  have  seen  them  very  often. 
But  I  well  remember  the  Brighton  coaches,  and  my  aston- 
ishment at  my  father  shaking  hands  with  the  coachman, 
who  was  Sir  Vincent  Cotton;  and  the  laughter  at  my  god- 
father, Edmund  Byng,  when  lie  told  us  tliat,  ])assiiig  by 
the  Wliite  Horse  Cellar,  a  coachman  had  familiarly  tapped 
him  on  the  shoulder  witli  his  whip,  and,  looking  up  in  a  rage, 
he  had  recognized  his  "  rascally  nephew,  Edward  Thymic." 
Clean-shaven  faces  were  uncommon ;  a  pair  of  "  mut- 
ton-clio})"  whiskers  was  de  rigueur;  but  a  "pair  of  mus- 
tachios,"  as  they  were  called,  was  never  seen,  save  on  a 
cavalry  officer,  a  dancing-master,  or  a  "  snob,"  and  the  cul- 
tivation of  a  beard  was  wholly  confined  to  foreigners.* 

♦  In  ]8r)0,  when  Albert  Smith  had  just  returned  from  his  Nile  trip  and 
his  month  at  Constantinople,  with  a  flowing  beard,  he  was  a  candidate  for 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  33 

In  those  days  it  was  no  uncommon  sight,  on  looking  up 
at  the  cry  of  "  Sweep!"  to  see  a  sooty  imp  protruding  from 
a  chimney-pot,  and  waving  his  brush.  This  was  the  ver- 
itable "  climbing-boy,"  who  was  popularly  supposed  to  be 
the  slave  of  a  tyrannical  master,  whose  ascent  of  a  diffi- 
cult chimney  was  said  to  be  hastened  by  the  burning 
straw  in  the  grate  beneath ;  who  wore  a  brass  plate,  with 
his  master's  name  and  address,  on  the  front  of  his  cap; 
who  danced  in  the  streets  on  May-day  in  company  with 
Jack-in-the-Green,  "my  lord,"  and  the  girl  who  rattled 
the  ladle  as  a  suggestion  for  donations ;  and  who  —  the 
little  sooty  imp — was,  in  all  our  childish  minds,  the  hero 
of  the  story  in  which  the  tired-out  little  sweep  lay  down 
on  the  bed  in  Montagu  House,  and  being  found  there, 
was  recognized  as  the  child  who  had  been  stolen  thence 
some  years  previously. 

What  a  change  in  the  aspect  of  the  streets  of  London 
since  those  days !  Gone  is  the  colonnade  over  the  shops 
in  the  Quadrant,  which  extended  from  the  County  Fire 
Office  to  Glasshouse  Street,  which  was  taken  down,  partly 
to  give  more  light  to  the  shopkeepers,  but  mainly  at  the 
pertinacious  insistance  of  one  of  them,  a  stationer  named 
Dolby,  who  denounced  the  covered  way  as  affording  a 
retreat  for  "dissolute  persons."  Poor  "dissolute  per- 
sons," ever  hunted  into  the  hard,  cold  streets!  Gone  is 
the  Rookery,  a  conglomeration  of  slums  and  alleys  in  the 
heart  of  St.  Giles's,  a  resort  of  really  desperate  charac- 
ters, which  was  pulled  down  and  smashed  up  when  New 
Oxford  Street  was  made.  Before  that,  all  the  vehicular 
traffic,  and  every  pedestrian  who  did  not  care  to  run  the 
risk  of  being  mobbed  and  hustled,  turned  off  to  the  right 
on  reaching  the  commencement  of  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
where  stands  Meux's  Brewery,  and,  making  a  considera- 

the  Garrick  Club.  It  was  unofficially  notified  to  hira  from  the  committee 
that  his  beard  was  most  objectionable.  A.  S.  distinctly  refused  to  be  ter- 
rorized into  shaving,  but  declared  he  would  have  no  objection  to  modify 
the  hirsute  adornment  after  his  election.  The  "  beard  movement,"  as  it 
was  called,  by  which  w,  ot  rid  of  the  imperative  necessity  for  the  appall- 
ing razor,  did  not  take  place  until  after  the  Crimean  War.  It  was  im- 
mensely assisted  by  an  article  in  Household  Words,  entitled  "  Why  Shave  ?" 


34  riTTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

ble  detour,  passing  St.  Giles's  Church,  and  through  Broad 
Street,  Bloomsbury,  came  out  into  Holborn  just  by  the 
top  of  Drury  Lane.  That  was  the  regular  north-western 
route  to  the  City  when  I  first  went  there  in  '47,  and  now 
it  is  almost  a  desert.  Gone  are  Holborn  Hill  and  Snow 
Hill  and  Skinner  Street,  the  mountain-pass  of  the  great 
Farringdon  range,  done  away  with  by  the  great  engi- 
neering triumph  of  the  Holborn  Viaduct.  The  L.C.C.  or 
London  Conveyance  Company,  which  owned  many  omni- 
buses in  those  days,  used  to  have  a  man  stationed  at  the 
top  of  Holborn  Hill  to  jerk  the  skid  under  the  Avheels  of 
the  omnibuses,  and  another  at  the  bottom  to  jerk  it  off; 
and  in  bad  weather  these  poor  wretches  were  scarcely 
recognizable  as  human  beings  from  their  incrustations  of 
mud.  On  Snow  Hill  was  the  Saracen's  Head,  where  Mr. 
Squeers  used  to  put  up. 

Gone  is  Smithfield,  with  its  very  wide  open  pens  and 
cattle-hutches ;  and  gone  with  it  is  a  good  deal  of  the 
scandal  of  driving  the  wretched  beasts  through  the  streets, 
and  whacking  and  torturing  them  in  the  most  dreadful 
fashion.  Enormous  hordes  of  cattle  for  Smithfield  Mon- 
day market,  then — not  as  now,  sent  up  by  rail,  but  driven 
long  and  tedious  journeys — used  to  arrive  at  Highgate  on 
the  Saturday,  and  pass  the  Sunday  in  the  fields  let  out  for 
the  purpose.  Gone  is  Cranbourn  Alley,  the  home  of  the 
bonnet-makers,  and  Leicester  Square  such  as  I  first  remem- 
ber it — a  howling  wilderness,  witli  broken  railings,  a  re- 
ceptacle for  dead  cats  and  every  kind  of  abomination ; 
then  covered  over  by  the  hideous  building  for  Mr.  Wyld's 
great  Globe;  and  lastly  in  its  present  pretty  and  cheerful 
condition.  Gone  is  pleasant  Brom})ton,  transformed  into 
Soutli  Kensington,  and  now  absorbing  dear  Old  Bromp- 
ton,  with  its  broad  acres  of  market  -  garden,  its  green 
lanes,  pretty  cottages,  and  general  rurality.  And  gone, 
too,  is  a  bevy  of  terraces  and  streets  and  places,  rejoicing 
in  the  generic  name  of  "  Upper  Eaton,"  and  situate  be- 
tween Grosvcnor  Place  and  the  Victoria  Station.  The 
magnificent  Grosvcnor  Gardens  stand  on  the  site  which 
they  occupied — cheery  homes  of  the  St.  George's  medical 
students,  always  redolent  of  pipes  and  beer. 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  35 

When  I  had  achieved  the  age  of  nine  it  was  consid- 
ered that  I  had  sufficiently  drained  the  Pierian  spring, 
as  supplied  by  Mr.  Kieckhofer,  and  that  I  should  be  re- 
moved to  some  establishment  where  a  better  quality  of 
the  article  was  on  tap.  My  father  had  a  strong  wish  that 
my  ultimate  destination  should  be  Holy  Orders,  and  that 
I  should  at  once  go  to  his  old  school.  Charter-house,  and 
thence  to  Oxford.  But  there  were  many  difficulties  of 
various  kinds  against  taking  even  the  first  step  in  that 
direction;  and  after  some  discussion  it  was  decided  that 
I  should  be  sent  to  Sir  Roger  Cholmeley's  Foundation 
School  at  Highgate,  now  known  as  Highgate  School,  an 
endowed  foundation  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  which,  after  a 
long  unacknowledged  existence,  was  beginning  to  pros- 
per under  its  newly-appointed  head-master,  the  Reverend 
John  Bradley  Dyne,  of  Wadham  College,  Oxford.  It  was, 
of  course,  a  "  day-school,"  and  though  boarders  were  re- 
ceived at  one  or  two  of  the  masters'  houses,  it  was  arranged 
that  I  should  go  to  live  with  some  friends  of  Mrs,  Kieck- 
hufer,  resident  in  Highgate,  who  had  just  fallen  into  finan- 
cial trouble,  and  who  proposed  thus  to  increase  their  means. 

They  were  singularly  nice  people  —  I  will  call  them 
Steere  —  and  exceptionally  unfitted  for  the  duties  which 
they  had  taken  upon  themselves.  It  was  all  very  well 
when  I  was  their  only  boarder  ;  and,  being  constantly 
either  at  school  or  in  the  playing-fields  with  their  eldest 
son,  a  lad  of  my  own  age,  I  made  little  difference  in  their 
arrangements.  But  when  their  ambition  increased,  and 
they  took  more  boarders,  and  removed  from  their  pretty 
little  villa  to  a  huge  ramshackle  house  in  the  village,  in 
which  they  had  only  a  little  oasis  of  decent  furniture  and 
appointments  in  a  desert  of  school-room  and  play-room, 
and  bare  floors  and  forms  and  trestle  deal-tables,  where 
they  could  seldom  escape  from  the  perpetual  noise  and 
racket  and  discomfort  of  a  dozen  strong,  hot,  sturdy  boys, 
with  all  the  selfishness,  insensibility,  and  obstinacy  which 
characterize  the  race,  they  must  have  thought  their  money 
hardly  earned  indeed.  Mrs.  Steere  %vas  a  charming  little 
woman,  faiidy  young,  pretty,  accomplished,  ladylike;  she 
used  to  work  like  a  slave,  and  we  scoundrel  boys  used 


36  FEFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

to  tyrannize  over  her  like  Turks,  find  out  her  weak  points 
—  which  were,  of  course,  her  children  —  and  attack  her 
through  them,  worry  her  life  almost  out  of  her,  and  she 
never  repined. 

I  am  not  sure  that,  with  all  her  gentle  kindness,  she 
was  as  much  liked  by  most  of  the  boys  as  her  husband; 
I  know  that  with  me  he  was  the  greater  favorite.  This 
was  because,  even  with  the  difference  in  our  ages,  we  had 
many  tastes  in  common:  he  often  said  I  was  more  like 
him  in  my  ideas  than  his  own  son,  who  was  a  studious, 
practical,  earnest  fellow,  and  who  now  holds  one  of  the 
most  important  commercial  positions  in  Loudon.  Mr. 
Steere  was  a  bit  of  a  Bohemian  and  a  great  character ; 
and  I  suppose,  even  in  those  days,  character  study  had  a 
fascination  for  me.  He  was  a  young  man  still — only  a 
little  over  thirty,  I  should  say;  but  we  never  could  clear- 
ly make  out  what  had  been  his  previous  career.  He  never 
actually  said  it,  but  he  certainly  insinuated  that  he  had 
been  a  cavalry  officer,  in  some  regiment  of  Dragoon  Guards, 
we  thought;  a  sword  and  sabre-tache  were  suspended  on 
the  wall  of  his  dressing-room;  an  "Army  List"  and  a 
handsome  book  of  colored  plates  of  the  uniforms  of  the 
different  regiments  were  among  his  treasures;  and  he  had 
a  habit  of  throwing  himself  into  a  fencing  attitude,  and 
delivering  himself  of  a  "  pass  "  with  his  stick  at  any  post 
or  tree  we  might  meet  with.  And  yet  my  firm  belief  is 
that  he  had  not  the  faintest  connection  with  the  army, 
but  had  been  a  clerk  to  hi&  father,  who  had  failed  as  a 
banker.  But,  for  an  eager  enthusiastic  boy,  he  was  the 
most  delightful  of  friends.  He  was  the  bright  side  of 
Micawber,  the  constant  anticipation  of  something  good 
about  to  "turn  up;"  he  was  full  of  good  stories  —  not 
merely  anecdotes  and  jokes,  thougli  he  had  a  supply  of 
those,  but  long  dramatic  stories,  which  he  told  admirably. 
He  was  a  believer  in  ghosts,  about  which  he  had  innu- 
merable legends.  Best  of  all,  he  was  the  first  who  told 
me  of  Walter  Scott  and  Dickens,  lending  me  the  treas- 
ured volumes,  and  sometimes  reading  out  Avhole  scenes 
of  "  Pickwick,"  interrui)thig  himself  with  his  convulsions 
of  hearty  laughter. 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  37 

When  I  was  Avithin  a  fortnight  of  my  eleventh  birth- 
day, I  experienced  my  first  genuine  grief  —  the  death  of 
my  father.  I  do  not  know  whether  he  was  constitution- 
ally consumptive — there  were  stories  that  he  had  been 
internally  injured  by  an  elephant  which  had  been  exhib- 
ited in  some  piece  at  the  Adelphi,  and  into  whose  den  he 
had  rashly  ventured ;  but  the  fact  remains  that,  some  five 
years  previously,  while  playing  "Robert  Macaire,"  he  had 
broken  a  blood-vessel.  He  was  so  ill  that  his  life  was 
despaired  of;  and  even  on  his  convalescence  he  was  warned 
that  he  ought  never  to  act  again.  Such  a  warning  to 
such  a  man  was,  of  course,  absurd ;  his  natural  energy, 
not  to  say  irritability,  rendered  it  impossible  to  abide  by 
any  rules  he  might  prescribe  for  himself;  and,  moreover, 
his  means  of  existence  depended  on  his  exertions.  He  re- 
sumed the  exercise  of  his  profession  as  soon  as  he  thought 
he  could  do  so  with  comparative  safety. 

In  the  winter  of  '41-42,  while  playing  at  the  Adelphi 
in  "  Agnes  St.  Aubyn,"  he  again  ruptured  a  vessel,  but 
recovered  sufficiently  to  play  till  the  end  of  the  season. 
Immediately  at  its  close,  on  the  night  before  Passion 
Week,  my  father  and  mother,  with  Wright,  Paul  Bed- 
ford, and  one  or  two  more  of  the  company,  started  to 
play  an  engagement  in  Dublin.  My  father  suffered  con- 
siderably during  the  voyage,  but  rallied  on  reaching  the 
shore.  On  the  Saturday  before  Easter  Sunday  he  was 
rehearsing  Lord  Skindeep  in  Jerrold's  "Bubbles  of  the 
Day,"  when  he  suddenly  felt  ill,  and,  putting  his  hand- 
kerchief to  his  mouth,  found  he  had  ruptured  another 
vessel,  and  was  spitting  blood.  With  great  presence  of 
mind  he  avoided  giving  any  alarm  to  my  mother,  who 
was  on  the  stage  at  the  time ;  but  merely  saying,  "  Bess, 
I  shall  go  away  now,"  turned  and  went  off  to  Morrison's 
Hotel,  where  they  were  staying.  There  he  lay  for  some 
weeks,  incapable  of  being  moved,  attended  by  the  famous 
physician.  Sir  Philip  Crampton,  a  certain  Dr.  Joy,  after- 
wards well  known  in  London  as  a  factotum  of  Mr.  Charles 
Kean's,  and  an  apothecary,  whose  name  escapes  me,  but 
of  whom,  to  show  "  the  ruling  passion  strong  in  death,"  I 
tell  this  anecdote. 


38  FIFTY  TEAKS  OF  LOJTOON  LIFE. 

The  apothecary  was  a  very  strange-looking  person,  with 
odd  features,  peculiar  hair,  an  enormous  white  neck-cloth, 
and  a  singular  way  of  carrying  his  cane.  Now,  the  mo- 
bility of  my  father's  features,  and  his  power  of  reproduc- 
ing facially  as  well  as  vocally  the  persons  whom  he  imi- 
tated, was  a  frequent  theme  among  his  admirers.  He  had 
evidently,  illness  notwithstanding,  been  much  struck  by 
the  appearance  of  his  medical  attendant,  and  one  day  when 
my  mother  and  Dr.  Joy — I  have  heard  the  story  from  both 
— were  coming  into  the  room,  he  asked  them  to  wait  a  mo- 
ment. When  he  called,  they  entered,  and  found  him  sitting 
up  in  bed:  he  had  arranged  his  hair,  twisted  his  face,  put  on 
a  towel  for  a  cravat,  got  hold  of  a  stick,  and  sat  there  the 
living  image  of  the  man  he  intended  to  represent. 

The  illness  was  evidently  very  serious  this  time,  and  it 
was  decided,  as  soon  as  he  was  sufficiently  strong  to  bear 
the  journey,  to  get  him  to  London,  where  he  could  be  un- 
der the  care  of  his  old  friend  Dr.  Billing,  and  his  brother, 
Dr.  Yates,  both  of  whom  were  well  acquainted  with  his 
constitution  and  idiosyncrasy.  The  well-known  tragedian, 
Mr.  Macready,  was  acting  in  Dublin  at  the  time,  and  sent 
my  mother  the  following  note,  which  I  give  in  proof,  de- 
spite of  too  many  recorded  instances  of  temper,  egotism, 
and  vanity,  of  his  real  goodness  of  heart  and  kindly  feel- 
ing: 

"  Gresham's  Ilotel,  Jane  8, 1842. 
"  My  dear  Madam, — I  will  make  no  apology  for  iiitriuling  this  hurried 
note  upon  you,  as  it  will  bear  its  own  excuse  with  it.  Let  me,  in  as  few 
words  as  possible,  assure  you  of  my  deep  sympathy  in  your  late  anxieties, 
and  offer  you  my  congratulations  on  the  progress  towards  recovery  which 
Mr.  Yates  has  made,  to  whom  I  beg  you  will  present  my  continued  wishes 
for  his  perfect  restoration.  Uaving  heard  that  you  purpose  setting  out 
for  London  to-night,  I  have  thought  it  only  right  to  apprise  you  of  the 
necessity  there  is,  if  Mr.  Yates  travels  iu  one  of  the  railway-carriage  ink, 
to  provide  yourself  in  Liverpool  with  a  very  soft  feather-bed  (o  lay  upon 
the  ninhuniJi  of  the  common  carriof/c-bcJ,  and  also  additional  soft  pillows. 
I  Jcnow,  from  several  night  journeys,  that  the  shaking  of  the  carriage  is 
fdt  much  iiiorc  in  the  recumbent  than  in  the  sitting  posture,  unless  well 
eased  by  additional  cushioning.  There  will  be  no  didiculty  in  arranging 
this,  and,  well  guarded  in  this  respect,  I  have  no  doubt  he  will  be  able  to 
reach  London  without  inconvenience.  With  my  best  wishes  accompany- 
ing your  journey,  I  am,  dear  madam,  very  faithfully  yours, 

"  W.  C.  Mackkady." 


YOUTH  AXD  EDUCATION.  39 

They  arrived  in  London  on  Friday,  the  10th  June,  and 
my  father  was  first  taken  to  the  Euston  Hotel;  but  the 
noise  and  bustle  being  too  much  for  him,  he  was  removed 
to  a  furnished  house,  No.  4  Mornington  Crescent,  Hamp- 
stead  Road,  in  the  immediate  neighborhood.  There  he 
lay  for  ten  days,  with  my  mother  and  my  aunt,  Miss  Yates, 
in  constant  attendance  on  him.  On  the  tenth  day  my 
aunt,  seeing  my  mother  breaking  down  with  fatigue,  urged 
my  father  to  use  his  aiithority  in  getting  her  to  forego  her 
watch,  and  get  some  rest.  "  Let  her  give  me  one  more 
day," he  said;  "I  won't  ask  for  any  more!"  and  the  next 
day,  at  twenty  minutes  past  three  p.  m.,  he  passed  away, 
perfectly  sensible,  and,  with  his  last  breath,  blessing  his 
wife,  and  commending  her  to  the  care  of  those  who  loved 
him. 

He  was  buried  on  the  following  Sunday  morning  in  the 
vaults  of  the  parish  church  of  St.  Martin' s-in-the-Fields.  I 
can  see  the  ceremony  now,  with  myself  as  chief  mourner, 
and  my  kind  uncle.  Dr. Yates;  Mr.  Gladstane,  my  father's 
partner  in  the  Adelphi ;  my  godfather,  Frederick  Hodg- 
son ;  and  Charles  Manby,  my  father's  executor  and  my 
guardian,  who  only  died  at  the  end  of  July  this  year  (1884). 
On  the  steps  of  the  church  were  some  of  the  Adelphi  com- 
pany— Wilkinson  and  Lyon,  a  well-known  character,  John 
Saunders,  and  some  of  the  old  servants  of  the  theatre.  So 
he  left  us  :  only  forty-five,  full  of  energy  and  enthusiasm, 
and  just  beginning  to  shake  himself  free  from  pecuniary 
trammels,  and  to  take  his  proper  position  in  that  art  of 
which  he  was  so  decided  an  ornament. 

Extracts  from  the  obituary  notices  of  the  journals  of  the 
day  are  before  me,  and  in  them  I  find  willing  tribute  to 
his  genius.  "  It  may  be  truly  said,"  says  the  Standard, 
"  that  Yates  was  one  of  the  most  versatile  performers  on 
the  stage,  which  may,  perhaps,  account  for  his  having  had 
no  decided  forte.  In  tragedy,  comedy,  farce,  and  melo- 
drama he  was  occasionally  capital,  and  always  respectable. 
His  extraordinary  talent  as  a  manager  has  been  universally 
acknowledged,  and  his  loss  will  be  severely  felt  by  the 
play-goers  of  the  metropolis.  The  command  he  possessed 
over  the  audience  has  been  frequently  exemplified;  by  one 


40  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

word  addressed  in  his  peculiar  way  he  could  quiet  the  most 
uproarious  gallery,  and  secure  the  good-will  of  his  hear- 
ers under  the  most  embarrassing  circumstances."  *  The 
Morning  Herald  says  :  "  As  an  actor  he  exhibited  won- 
derful versatility.  At  the  Adelphi  he  played  whatever 
was  wanted  in  the  pieces  produced;  that  is  to  say,  not  the 
best  parts  in  the  piece,  but  the  parts  he  found  it  most  dif- 
ficult to  get  portrayed."  The  Sunday  Times,  recalling 
his  early  days  at  Covent  Garden,  says  :  "  He  played 
Frenchmen,  Jews,  Scotchmen  ;  tragedy,  comedy,  farce  ; 
old  men  and  walking  gentlemen  ;  and  obtained  the  sou- 
briquet of  'Kill  Devil.'  What  nobody  else  would  act 
was  sent  to  Yates."  The  Times  "regrets  exceedingly  to 
announce  the  demise  of  this  most  popular  performer  and 
manager;"  and  the  Morning  Post  gives  a  long  biography 
and  laudatory  notice  of  his  labors. 

My  father  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  irritability,  partly 
natural,  partly  induced  by  having  to  deal  with  such  pre- 
tcrnaturally  stupid  people  as  the  lowest  class  of  actors,  the 
"  supers,"  are  found  to  be.  I  have  seen  him  at  rehearsal 
standing  on  a  bench  in  the  pit,  and  thence  directing  the 
movements  of  a  crowd  or  a  procession  or  some  congrega- 
tion of  "  supers  "  on  the  stage.  "  No,  no !  that's  not  a  bit 
like  it !  Don't  you  hear  what  I  say  ?  When  Mr.  Lyon 
says, '  Behold  your  king  !'  you — "  Then  came  instructions 
in  detail.  "Now  try  again!"  This  would  happen  over 
and  over  again,  until  at  last  he  would  send  his  hat  flying 
among  them,  aud  descend  from  his  bench  quivering  with 
rage.  But  to  his  friends,  male  and  female,  he  had  many 
lovable  qualities :  he  was  an  immense  favorite  with  the 
public,  and  the  grief  at  his  death  Avas  very  wide-spread.  As 
to  my  mother,  all  thought  the  shock  of  her  husband's  loss 

*  There  is  a  f^ood  story  tokl  of  my  fatlicr  in  connection  with  his  power 
of  (luelling  nproar  ainonf;  tiie  audience.  One  niglit  a  tremendous  row  oc- 
curred at  the  end  of  the  first  act  of  a  new  piece.  Loud  cries  for  "  Yatea  " 
brought  my  father  on  to  the  stage.  "  Wiiat  is  all  this  V"  he  asked,  per- 
emptorily. Unintelligible  yells  and  shouts  from  all  parts  of  the  house. 
"Look  here!"  said  my  father,  on  the  first  approach  to  silence,  shaking 
his  finger  menacingly  at  the  audience  generally,  "  if  there  is  any  more  of 
this  disturbance,  yon  ahull  Ivave  your  orders  back  /" 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  41 

would  have  killed  her.  To  her  dying  day,  eighteen  years 
after,  she  cherished  his  memory,  and  kept  the  anniversary 
of  his  death  in  solitude  and  prayer. 

Immediately  after  the  funeral,  my  mother  removed  to 
a  furnished  house  in  Grove  Terrace,  Kentish  Town,  which 
she  had  taken  for  a  few  months,  where  the  sweet  air  and 
perfect  quiet  —  for  in  those  days  Kentish  Town  was  a 
very  pretty  suburb,  surrounded  by  broad  fields,  and  per- 
meated by  the  fresh  air  from  Highgate  and  Hampstead — 
did  her  much  good,  and  where  I  joined  her  in  my  mid- 
summer holidays,  then  close  at  hand.  Suddenly  stricken 
down,  my  father  had  left  his  affairs  in  some  confusion, 
and  it  was  not  known  whether  my  mother  would  have 
sufficient  income  to  enable  her  to  retire  wholly  from  the 
stage,  a  profession  which  she  had  always  detested,  and 
which  had  become  more  hateful  to  her  since  her  hus- 
band's death,  an  event  which  she  imagined,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  had  been  hastened  by  his  pursuance  of  it. 
Meanwhile  she  and  my  godmother.  Miss  Fernyhough,  a 
maiden  lady  of  good  Gloucestershire  family,  who  had 
long  had  great  affection  for  her  and  my  father,  and  who 
proved  herself  a  true  friend,  decided  upon  keeping  house 
together.  A  very  pretty  villa  with  a  huge  garden  was 
taken  in  the  New  Road  running  from  Hammersmith  to 
Shepherd's  Bush,  and  there  they  remained  for  some  time. 

That  Hammersmith  house  was  the  scene  of  a  very  fun- 
ny incident,  which  impressed  itself  on  my  youthful  mind. 
Hoping  never  to  have  to  return  to  the  hated  theatre,  and 
desirous  of  banishing  as  much  as  possible  all  memory  of 
it,  my  mother  desired  me  never,  in  any  intercourse  with 
the  new  servants,  to  refer  to  the  Adelphi,  or  to  hint  at 
what  had  been  my  father's  calling.  Of  course  I  obeyed, 
and  we  imagined  our  former  state  was  wholly  unknown 
to  the  household.  But  one  day  as  I  was  standing  in  the 
garden,  watching  the  factotum  man-servant  at  work,  he 
looked  up  and  said,  "  Lord,  sir,  how  you  do  remind  me  of 
your  pa  !"  I  was  very  much  taken  aback,  and  asked  him 
if  he  had  ever  seen  my  father.  "  Seen  him  !  Bless  you  !" 
he  cried,  in  tones  of  genuine  admiration, "  shall  I  ever  for- 
get him  as  Robsperry  at  the  Adelphi  ?"     Then  I  ran  off, 


42  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

and  narrated  what  had  happened  to  my  mother,  who,  in 
the  midst  of  her  dismay,  could  not  help  smiling  as  she 
told  me  that  Thomas  had  probably  referred  to  a  piece 
founded  on  certain  incidents  of  the  French  Revolution, 
in  which  my  father  had  played  Robespierre. 

I  may  here  state  that  my  mother's  hope  of  quitting  the 
stage  was  not  destined  to  be  fulfilled  just  then.  The 
Adelphi  property  was  sold  to  Mr,  Benjamin  Webster,  the 
lessee  of  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  who  placed  Madame 
Celeste  at  its  head,  and  engaged  an  excellent  company, 
in  which  ray  mother  took  a  prominent  position. 

I  look  back  to  the  six  years  which  I  passed  at  the  High- 
gate  School  with  very  little  pleasure.  The  head-master. 
Dr.  Dyne,  was  a  caj^able  pedagogue  enough,  but  more 
than  usually  narrow-minded,  priggish,  and  conventional. 
He  was  a  type  of  the  old-fashioned  pedantic  school,  which 
looked  upon  Oxford  as  the  "hub  of  the  universe,"  thought 
the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek  the  primary  object  of  our 
creation,  despised  modern  languages  and  foreign  coun- 
tries, and  believed  thoroughly  in  the  virtues  of  corporal 
punishment.  A  desperate  "  swisher  "  the  doctor,  as  I  had 
cause  to  know,  and  not  overburdened,  I  fully  believe, 
with  tact,  judgment,  or  impartiality.  He  never  liked  me, 
and  there  was  no  particular  reason  why  he  should,  for  I 
had  the  theatrical  taint ;  I  was  not  a  show-boy  ;  I  was 
not  going  to  the  university,  where  I  could  reflect  credit 
on  my  teaching;  and  I  was  idle,  mischievous,  independent. 

I  must  have  learned  something,  for  I  was  at  the  head 
of  the  fifth  form  when  I  left,  at  fifteen  years  of  age  ;  but 
I  do  not  suppose  what  I  acquired  did  me  much  good,  I 
could  read,  construe,  and  parse  the  principal  Latin  and 
Greek  poets — I  am  sure  I  could  not  do  so  now — but  of 
English  classics  I  was  wholly  ignorant  :  they  formed  no 
portion  of  the  "curriculum,"  Th:  study  of  modern  lan- 
guage, though  not  absolutely  tabooed,  Avas  minimized  as 
much  as  possible.  I  do  not  imagine  that  the  head-master 
or  any  of  his  satellites  had  ever  crossed  the  Channel,  or 
knew  a  syllable  even  of  French,  for  which  language  their 
contempt  was  as  great  as  Mr,  Lillyvick's,  The  learning 
of  French  and  German  was  an  "  extra  "  not  supposed  to 


YOUTH   AND  EDUCATION.  43 

be  in  the  least  necessaiy  to  an  ordinary  education,  but  to 
be  paid  for  separately,  and  to  be  undergone  by  the  boys, 
whose  foolish  parents  insisted  on  their  acquiring  it,  at 
times  when  the  rest  of  the  school  was  at  j^lay.  A  snuff- 
taking  old  French  gentleman  came  once  a  week,  and  sat 
at  the  end  of  a  table,  while  a  dozen  boys  fought  round  it, 
lai'ked,  and  shot  paper  2)ellets  into  his  frizzy  hair.  He 
had  no  authority,  poor  old  fellow,  and  there  was  no  one 
to  keep  order  ;  the  whole  thing  was  a  farce  ;  and  had  I 
not  had  a  natural  inclination  for  French  study,  and  an 
interest  in  my  "Telemaque"  and  my  "Ilenriade"  suf- 
ficient to  induce  me  to  read  them  in  my  play -hours  and 
my  holidays — interest  such  as  I  never  could  feel  in  my 
Homer,  Virgil,  or  Herodotus — I  should  have  left  High- 
gate  as  ignorant  of  modern  language  as  did  most  of  my 
compeers.  But  though  I  got  little  good  from  it,  it  is  not 
to  be  denied  that  Highgate  School,  under  Dr.  Dyne's  man- 
agement, was  very  successful.  Its  pupils  took  scholar- 
ships and  exhibitions,  and  good  positions  later  on  in  the 
class-lists  ;  and  the  tone  of  the  school,  which  under  the 
doctor's  predecessors  had  suffered  terribly,  was  entirely 
restored  by  him  :  a  greater  feat,  it  will  be  allowed,  than 
the  quintupling  the  number  of  pupils,  which  Dr.  Dyne 
also  accomplished  during  his  regime. 

I  think  I  was  tolerably  popular  among  my  school-fel- 
lows. I  was  in  the  first  eleven  at  cricket,  and,  being  tall 
and  strong,  was  a  tolerable  performer  at  foot-ball  and 
hockey.  The  two  elder  sons  of  Mr.  Bethell,  Q.C.,  after- 
wards, as  Lord  Westbury,  the  Lord  Chancellor — Richard, 
who  succeeded  his  father,  and  is  dead,  and  Slingsby,  Avho 
is  reading-clerk  in  the  House  of  Lords — were  at  High- 
gate,  where  their  father  then  lived,  and  both  were  friends 
of  mine.  On  Richard  Bethell's  dun-colored  pony  I  had 
my  first  experience  of  equitation.  Mr.  Bethell  had  been 
acquainted  with  our  head-master  since  their  college-days. 
They  were  both  Wadham  men,  and  we  boys  were  much 
interested  in  the  career  of  the  great  lawyer,  and  hunted 
for  his  name  in  the  newspaper  reports  of  the  courts.  I 
can  see  hi'ta  now,  in  his  pew  in  the  church,  which  directly 
fronted  ours,  bald  -  headed,  with  well  -  cut  features  and  a 


44  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

general  air  of  distinction,  and  I  can  hear  the  mincing 
tones,  "Rich-ard,  my  dee- ah  !"  in  which  I  often  heard 
him  address  his  son. 

Closer  in  my  intimacy  was  Thomas  Keith,  now  Ac- 
countant of  the  India  Ottice,  M'hose  father  and  uncle  at 
that  time  held  good  positions  in  its  forerunner,  the  old 
East  India  House  in  Leadcnhall  Street.  My  friend's  un- 
cle, the  elder  of  the  brothers,  who  was  for  a  long  time  the 
head  of  his  office,  had  in  his  early  days  been  a  fellow-clerk 
with  Charles  Lamb,  of  whom  he  would  tell  good  stories. 
I  remember  also  his  showing  me  a  book  which  had  been 
given  him  by  Lamb,  with  a  very  Lamb-like  inscription. 
It  was  a  "Table  of  Interest,"  and  on  the  fly-leaf  was  writ- 
ten, "William  Thomas  Keith,  from  Charles  Lamb.  In 
this  book,  unlike  most  others,  the  farther  you  progress 
the  more  the  interest  increases." 

More  intimate  still,  my  close  chum,  such  as  every  school- 
boy worth  anything  must  have,  was  Theodore  Erailius 
Gahagan,  of  an  Irish  family  Avell  known  in  Anglo-Indian 
military  life.  A  bright,  charming  fellow,  very  clever,  with 
a  real  appreciation  of  the  ludicrous,  and  wonderfully  fun- 
ny himself,  a  capital  draughtsman,  a  clever  caricaturist, 
Avith  a  knack  of  verse-writing  and  an  early  inclination  to 
literature.  He  and  I  were  inseparable  at  school  and  in 
the  holidays.  When  we  left  Highgate — we  entered  and 
left  the  school  on  the  Game  day — he  went  to  Addiscombe, 
then  the  military  training-school  for  the  H.E.T.C.S., 
whence,  taking  the  highest  honors,  he  passed  into  the  En- 
gineers. He  was  wounded  in  the  liuvmese  War  of  1852, 
and  died  some  years  afterwards  in  India  of  dysentery. 

Other  school-fellows  and  friends  of  mine  at  Highgate 
were  G.  H.  To<l-TI('atly,  well  known  in  London  society  ; 
(!liarlos  Marshall  (irillith,  Q.C'. ;  Thomas  Warakor,  LL.D., 
of  Cambridge ;  J.  Cotter  Morison  ;  H.  li.  Rogers,  the  tr.ans- 
lator  of  Aristophanes;  Richard  Goodhall  JSmith,  former- 
ly librarian  of  the  Middle  Temple  ;  and  General  J.  F. 
D.  Donnelly,  of  the  Sonlh  Kensington  Museum.  Phil- 
ij)  Worslcy,  known  for  his  .'ulniirablc  translations  of  the 
"Iliad"  and  the  "Odyssey,"  was  also  at  Highgate,  but 
immediately  after  my  time. 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  45 

Our  yearly  examinations  were  conducted  by  Dr.  Rus- 
sell, who  had  been  my  father's  head-master  at  Charter- 
house ;  and  our  prizes  were  distributed  on  speech-day  by 
the  Bishop  of  London — not  the  present  bishop,  who  was 
at  that  time  incumbent  of  Muswell  Hill,  a  neighboring 
parish,  but  the  great  Charles  James  Blomfield,  a  fine, 
handsome  man,  whom  I  recollect  seeing  in  the  pulpit, 
shorn  indeed  of  his  episcopal  wig,  for  those  monstrosities 
had  just  been  given  up,  but  decked  out  by  an  enormous 
pair  of  lawn  sleeves.  The  Duke  of  St.  Albans,  who  lived 
then  on  Highgate  Hill,  at  Holly  Lodge,  now  occupied  by 
the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  was  another  speech-day  vis- 
itor, and  an  unfailing  sleeper  during  the  greater  portion 
of  the  entertainment. 

At  this  period  of  my  life  the  important  question  of 
what  I  was  to  do  in  the  way  of  earning  my  living  had 
been  pretty  well  left  to  take  care  of  itself.  My  mother's 
income,  independent  of  her  profession,  was  lamentably 
small.  It  was  her  greatest  wish,  and  mine  too,  that  she 
should  retire  as  soon  as  possible  from  the  stage,  where, 
no  longer  a  young  woman  nor  a  manager's  wife,  she  found 
her  position  each  year  less  tolerable  ;  and  it  was  plainly 
impossible  for  her  to  make  me  the  allowance  necessary  for 
my  maintenance  at  college,  even  if  I  had  had  the  small- 
est inclination  to  go  there.  The  idea  of  the  Church  had 
not  been  mooted  for  years  ;  but  I  think  my  mother  would 
have  been  very  pleased  could  she  have  seen  her  way  to 
insure  my  proper  preparation  for  the  Bar.  This,  however, 
even  if  it  had  not  involved  a  University  career,  would 
have  been  impossible.  Prudent  friends,  who  knew  the 
narrowness  of  our  means,  wisely  insisted  that  I  ought,  in- 
stead of  spending  money,  to  be  put  to  earning  it  as  soon 
as  possible,  and  that  efforts  should  be  made  to  obtain  for 
me  a  nomination  to  a  Government  clerkship  —  appoint- 
ments which  in  those  happy  days  went,  like  kissing,  by 
favor,  and  needed  no  superlative  talent  to  win  them  from 
a  sti'uggling  host  of  competitors.  But  I  was  only  fifteen, 
full  young  to  think  of  being  settled  for  life,  and  sixteen 
was  the  lowest  age  at  which  one  could  enter  the  Govern- 
ment service  ;  so,  to  my  great  delight,  my  mother  deter- 


46  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

rained  that  I  should  at  once  leave  High  gate,  and  have  a 
year's  instruction  in  German  and  French,  to  be  acquired 
in  their  respective  countries.  Her  wisdom  was  approved 
by  the  friends  whom  she  consulted,  and  in  the  summer  of 
'46  I  bade  farewell  to  Highgate  School. 

Some  friends  of  ours  had  connections  residing,  for  econ- 
omy's sake,  at  Dusseldorf,  a  pleasant  town  on  the  Lower 
Rhine,  from  whom  we  had  information  of  a  certain  Herr 
Holthausen,  a  professor  in  the  Gymnasium  —  it  must  be 
remembered  that  a  German  Gymnasium  is  a  place  of 
mental,  and  not  muscular,  exercise — who  was  willing  to 
receive  an  English  pupil  into  his  house.  I  rather  shied 
when  I  heard  of  the  school,  as  I  had  decided  that  my  term 
of  pupilage,  so  far  as  going  to  school  was  concerned,  was 
over.  I  represented  warmly  to  my  mother  that  the  one 
object  of  my  going  to  Germany  was  to  learn  the  language, 
and  that  there  would  be  but  little  chance  of  my  doing  that 
if  I  were  to  take  my  share  in  the  ordinary  curriculum  of  a 
large  public-school;  and  if  that  were  expected,  I  had  better 
have  remained  at  Highgate.  Finally,  it  was  arranged  that 
I  was  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  school,  only  to  be  a 
private  pupil  of  the  professor's,  resident  in  his  house. 

My  mother  had  determined  upon  accompanying  me  to 
Dusseldorf,  as  nothing  would  have  induced  her  to  part 
with  me  without  seeing  the  place  where,  and  the  people 
with  whom,  I  was  to  be  left.  So  she  and  her  maid  and  I 
started  oif  together.  It  was  not  my  dear  one's  first  ex- 
perience of  foreign  lands.  She  had  frequently  been  to 
Paris — which  in  tliose  diligence  days  meant  seeing  a  great 
deal  m<>re  of  France  and  French  life  than  we  do  now  in 
our  five  hours'  wliirl  from  ]5oulogne — and  she  and  my  fa- 
ther, snatching  a  brief  holiday,  had  once  made  a  rapid 
tour  of  the  Rliiiie.  I  do  not  know  whether  Mr.  ]\[urray's 
famous  hand-books  were  extant  in  those  days,  ])ut  I  well 
remember  my  mother's  telling  me  of  the  assistance  and 
comfort  they  had  obtained  from  the  hints  given  in  a  vol- 
ume, either  in  MS.  or  privately  printed,  by  a  young  man 
who  had  recently  been  over  the  grouiul,  and  who  Avas  the 
son  of  some  intimate  friends — "young  Martin  Tuj)per," 
the  venerable  l*roverl)ial  rhil()so})]ier  of  hiter  times. 


YOUTH   AND   EDUCATION.  47 

We  travelled  slowly,  for  we  had  no  occasion  for  haste, 
and  my  mother  delighted  in  my  delight  at  the  novelty 
and  the  freedom  from  scholastic  restriction.  We  stopped 
first  at  Dover,  shunning  the  stately  Ship,  notorious  for  its 
immense  charges,  and  going  to  a  hotel  (then  just  estab- 
lished), the  Dover  Castle,  which  still  exists  ;  crossing  to 
Ostend,  where  we  remained  a  day  or  two  ;  on  to  Verviers 
for  a  night ;  and  then  to  Cologne,  where  we  put  up  at  a 
second-rate  but  capital  inn  in  the  middle  of  the  town,  to 
which  we  had  been  recommended,  the  Briisseler  Ilof — it 
has  been  long  since  done  away  with — where  no  one  spoke 
English  or  French,  and  where  we  had  to  endeavor  to  ex- 
plain our  requirements  by  pantomimic  signs,  I  must  have 
traversed  that  ground  nearly  thirty  times  since,  but  the 
incidents  of  that  first  journey  are  fresher  in  my  mind 
than  those  of  last  year's  trip.  The  thick  white  cups  and 
saucers ;  the  inevitable  and  omnipresent,  from  Petersburg 
to  Paris,  "  mossoo  "  smell ;  the  blue  -  bloused  men,  the 
bonnetless  w^omen,  the  shovel  -  hatted  priests,  the  rope- 
girdled  friars — even  now,  when  first  seen  again,  invaria- 
bly recall  to  my  mind  the  little  Hotel  de  Flandre  at  Os- 
tend, where  I  first  found  myself  "  abroad." 

I  look  back  upon  my  time  at  Diisseldorf  with  the  same 
affectionate  regret  with  which  Tennyson's  Cleopatra  re- 
garded her  "  life  in  Egypt,"  although  "  the  dalliance  and 
the  wit,  the  flattery  and  the  strife,"  which  she  apostro- 
phized, were  but  small  factors  in  my  German  career.  The 
chief  cause  of  my  happiness  was  that  I  was,  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life,  my  own  master,  fearing  no  dominie,  un- 
accountable to  any  authority  ;  I  had  cast  the  school-boy 
shackles, 

"  and  began 
To  move  about  the  house  with  joy, 
And  with  the  certain  step  of  man." 

I  was  only  fifteen,  it  is  true,  but  I  was  a  tall,  stalwart 
youth,  looking  much  older,  and  most  of  my  ways  and 
thoughts  were  those  of  a  young  man  of  twenty.  I  was 
the  dear  old  professor's  only  private  pupil,  and  as  most 
of  his  time  was  passed  at  the  Gymnasium,  and  what  he 
called  his  leisure  found  him  in  a  gray  Schlafrock,  with  a 


48  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

pipe  hanging  from  his  mouth,  engaged  in  some  very  ab- 
struse reading,  I  had  my  time  pretty  well  to  myself. 

At  first  the  professor  made  some  attempt  at  giving  me 
regular  lessons,  but  he  was  compelled  to  admit  the  sound- 
ness of  a  theory  which  I  propounded — that,  as  I  had  come 
there  to  pick  up  the  language,  my  best  chance  of  accom- 
plishing my  end  was  by  going  about  as  much  as  possible, 
thrown  entirely  on  my  own  resources.  This  suited  the 
professor  perfectly,  and  thenceforth  I  had  perfect  liberty. 
I  soon  made  innumerable  acquaintances  of  all  kinds,  with 
whom  I  soon  quickly  managed  to  make  myself  under- 
stood ;  and  having  a  quick  ear,  I  made  rapid  progress.  I 
avoided  the  "  Plattdeutsch  "  of  the  lower  classes,  I  picked 
up  artistic  slang  among  the  painters,  oaths  and  free  ex- 
pressions from  the  officers,  and  plenty  of  small-talk  from 
everybody.  As  I  have  said,  there  and  then  commenced 
my  manhood  ;  from  that  time,  and  for  five-and-twenty 
years  afterwards,  I  had  no  friends  who  were  not  consid- 
erably my  seniors.  My  time  at  Dusseldorf  was  absolute- 
ly and  entirely  my  own.  I  might  be  absent  from  meals 
whenever  I  chose — and  I  think  Madame  Ilolthausen  rath- 
er preferred  my  absence,  for  economical  reasons,  for  in 
those  days,  like  Launcelot  Gobbo,  I  was  "  a  huge  feeder " 
— and  I  carried  about  with  me  the  key  of  the  street-door, 
a  huge  and  cumbrous  piece  of  ironmongery. 

Dusseldorf  was  then — what  it  had  been  for  years,  and 
what  it  is  now  perhaps  more  than  ever — renowned  as  one 
of  the  most  famous  of  the  Continental  art-schools.  It 
was  the  abode  of  hundreds  of  painters  of  all  kinds — real, 
true  l^jhemians,  such  as  w^ere  drawn  by  Murger  and  sung 
])y  Beranger — poor,  jolly,  imj^rovidcnt,  careless,  delightful 
fellows  ;  the  most  fascinating  company  in  the  world  for 
a  lad  with  youth  and  health,  and  the  keenest  possible  ap- 
preciation of  the  delightH  of  existence,  tlien  connnencing 
to  dawn  uj)on  him,  I  was  kindly  received  and  welcomed 
among  thom  all — by  Lessing,  one  of  the  finest  artists  of 
iiiodeni  days,  our  next-door  neighl)or  in  the  CTriine-Strasse  ; 
})y  Karl  llubner,  by  Andreas  and  Oswald  Achenbach,  now 
world-renowned,  then  ydung  fellows  with  wliom  I  have 
skated  all  day  and  half  the  night ;  by  Camphausen,  the 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  49 

German  Landseer ;  and  by  fifty  others,  unkempt,  un- 
washed, never  likely  to  win  any  renown,  very  poorly 
dressed,  very  warm  -  hearted,  ever  ready  to  share  their 
viertel  of  Varinas  tobacco  with  a  friend  ;  ever  ready  to 
knock  off  work,  and  go  round  to  the  nearest  Knei2:>e  for  a 
grand  consummation  and  many  glasses  of  beer. 

After  years  of  Dr.  Dyne  and  "  I  will  now  take  the  fifth 
form  with  their  Euripides  ;"  after  tight-reining  and  reg- 
ular hours  ;  after  having  to  hide  behind  a  hay-stack  to 
smoke  a  penny  cigar,  with  constant  anticipation  of  being 
caught  and  swished,  I  revelled  in  my  newly-acquired  free- 
dom, in  my  manhood  (precocious  though  it  were),  and  in 
the  knowledge  that  I  had  put  away  childish  things.  And, 
even  if  I  would  have  admitted  it,  there  was  no  occasion 
why  my  conscience  should  have  pricked  me ;  for  all  this 
time  I  was  carrying  out  the  object  with  which  I  was  sent, 
and  acquiring  an  excellent  conversational  knowledge  of 
the  language.  When  I  first  left  Dusseldorf,  and  for  some 
years  after,  having  had  only  nine  months'  experience,  I 
doubt  whether  there  were  many  English  people  who  could 
speak  German  with  equal  felicity  of  expression  and  jjur- 
ity  of  accent.  Constantly  in  Germany  I  passed  for  a 
native  ;  and  even  now,  though  years  of  want  of  practice 
have  rusted  my  tongue  and  dulled  my  ears,  after  a  week 
or  two  in  the  Mhemgegend  my  old  facility  seems  in  a 
measure  to  return.  I  could  write  the  language,  too,  fair- 
ly, though  my  style  could  not  have  been  called  strictly 
commercial,  as  the  demands  upon  it  were  in  quite  another 
strain  ;  and  those  demands  having  long  since  ceased,  the 
power  of  correspondence  has  entirely  vanished. 

Dusseldorf — which  has  now,  I  believe,  a  considerable 
English  colony — was  at  that  time  but  little  known  to  our 
countrymen;  but  even  then  there  were  three  or  four  resi- 
dent families,  from  whom  I  received  the  greatest  kind- 
ness. There  was  Captain  Flint — quaintest  and  most  ec- 
centric of  half- pay  artillerymen,  the  source  of  constant 
wonder,  not  unmixed  with  dread,  to  the  simple  Germans, 
who  called  him  "der  toller  Englander"  (the  mad  Eng- 
lishman), and  was  looked  on  in  open-mouthed  astonish- 
ment when,  with  a  battered  straw  hat  on  his  head  and  a 

3 


50  FIFTY   YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

linen  jacket  on  his  back,  he  would  carry  a  chair  into  the 
middle  of  the  public  Platz,  and  there  sit  down  and  peruse 
an  ancient  copy  of  the  Times;  or  stroll  along  the  Casta- 
nien  Allee,  chucking  every  passing  girl  under  the  chin 
with  his  shaking  hand,  leering  at  her  with  bloodshot  eyes, 
and  grunting  his  admiration  in  some  unknown  tongue — 
for  having  only  been  in  the  place  twenty  years  he  could 
not,  of  course,  speak  the  language.  He  had  a  daughter, 
a  bright  cheery  little  woman,  who  taught  English  in  sev- 
eral families,  and  more  than  half  supported  the  household 
by  her  exertions  ;  and  a  son,  a  kind,  good  fellow — half- 
Bohemian,  half-sportsman,  whole  idler — with  whom  I  used 
to  go  out  wild-duck  shooting.  There  was  a  charming- 
Jewish  family  named  Lindo — a  father  and  mother,  two 
daughters,  and  a  son  Philip,  an  artist,  my  great  chum,  in 
whose  atelier  I  used  to  spend  half  my  time,  and  Avith  whom 
I  used  to  ride  in  the  afternoon — for  my  dear  mother  al- 
lowed me  the  use  of  a  horse. 

Perhaps  of  them  all  I  was  most  constantly  associated 
with  the  family  of  a  retired  captain  in  the  navy,  an  Irish 
gentleman  of  good  l)irth,  with  a  hospitable  wife,  two  stal- 
wart sons,  and  a  remarkably  pretty  and  charming  daugh- 
ter-in-law. One  of  the  hearty  laughs  which  memory  can 
even  now  evoke  is  in  connection  with  these  worthy  peo- 
ple. I  was  to  spend  the  whole  of  Christmas-day  in  their 
company,  and  we  were  to  have  the  conventional  beef  and 
pudding  for  dinner — mainly,  I  believe,  out  of  kindness  to 
me;  for  the  day,  I  think,  is  not  much  of  a  festival  among 
the  Irish  of  the  north.  We  had  all  been  to  service  in  the 
Lutheran  church,  Avhich  was  occasionally  lent  to  us,  lis- 
tening to  the  ministrations  of  a  nomadic  divine  who  liad 
j)itched  Ills  tent  among  us  for  a  few  days,  and  wlio  osti'U- 
tatiously  exhibited  a  soup-plate  with  a  napkin,  on  wliich 
lay  a  thaler  and  a  half  as  a  decoy  at  the  church-door  ; 
and  when  we  reached  lioiiie  tlic  liouse  was  tightly  closed, 
and  no  knocking  or  ringing  could  procure  admission.  At 
length,  Avlicn  the  ])olice  were  al)OUt  to  be  sent  for,  llic 
door  was  opened  by  the  cook,  red- faced  and  agitated, 
who  announced  that  thieves  liad  Iteen  in  the  house  during 
our  absence,  and  that  everything  was  stolen.     There  was 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  61 

nothing  very  comic  in  this,  especially  to  a  very  hungry 
youth;  but  the  joke  lay  in  the  facial  and  verbal  expres- 
sions of  dear  old  Mrs.  Trotter,  who,  it  must  be  premised, 
knew  very  little  German,  and  to  whom  the  excited  ser- 
vant (doubtless  the  culprit)  addressed  herself,  with  the 
words,  "  O  madame,  madame,  ein  Dicb  ist  in's  Haus  gewe- 
sen  !"  (A  thief  has  been  in  the  house  !)  "Ah  !"  said  the 
old  lady,  slowly,  and  smiling;  then,  turning  to  us — "A 
Dieh!  And  hwat's  a  DiebT''  When  she  was  told,  the 
explosion  was  terrific. 

There  were  some  half-dozen  Americans  living  at  Dtis- 
scldorf  at  that  time,  among  whom  I  remember  a  very 
handsome  couple  named  Woodville,  the  husband  a  painter, 
and  father  of  Mr.  R.  Caton  Woodville,  who  contributes 
such  spirited  sketches  to  our  illustrated  journals,  and  who 
has  made  a  great  mark  with  more  ambitious  work;  and  a 
strange  fellow  named  Fink,  who  had  lived  a  long  time 
among  the  Indians,  and  who  at  the  Schwimm-Schule  on 
the  Rhine — made  by  railing  off  a  portion  of  the  river — 
showed  us  some  extraordinary  feats  in  diving  and  remain- 
ing under  water. 

Shooting  —  we  got  large  red  -  legged  partridges,  hares, 
and  wild -duck  in  abundance  —  riding,  skating  under  the 
pleasantest  circumstances,  under  a  bright  sun  or  moon, 
and  on  the  firmest  and  most  unyielding  ice,  and  lounging 
and  chaffing  at  the  ateliers  of  painter-comrades,  I  man- 
aged to  most  agi-eeably  while  away  the  day;  and  at  night 
there  were  occasionally  informal  receptions  at  the  houses 
of  English  or  German  friends,  and  always  the  Kneipe. 
Come  in  with  me  and  look  at  the  curious  scene — at  least, 
as  much  of  it  as  you  can  distinguish  through  the  tobacco- 
smoke  up-curling  from  every  mouth  :  it  is  as  fresh  in  my 
mind  as  it  was  in  my  sight  more  than  five-and-thirty  years 
ago. 

A  room,  long,  low,  and  dingy,  with  tables  running 
down  the  centre  and  sides;  wooden  settles,  and  other  fur- 
niture of  the  commonest  description ;  undecorated,  save 
by  chalk  caricatures  of  the  members,  some  by  themselves 
and  by  each  other,  and  admirably  portraying  the  peculi- 
arities of  all.     Listen  to  the  awful  noise  —  the  shouting, 


52  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

screeching,  joking,  blaspheming  uproar,  that  begins  with 
sunset,  and  with  many  ends  not  until  drunkenness  has 
taken  away  the  possibility  of  further  altercation.  Their 
fun  is  mostly  of  a  quiet,  decorous,  and,  truth  to  tell,  some- 
what dull  and  heavy  kind,  though  it  sometimes  breaks 
out  into  ribaldry  and  riot.  The  life  is  quite  amusing 
while  you  are  leading  it,  while  you  are  going  through  the 
regular  routine  of  it ;  but  when  you  have  left  it  for  a 
time — when  the  spell,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  is  bro- 
ken— you  look  back  with  astonishment  to  think  you  could 
have  ever  passed  through  such  a  phase  of  existence. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  childish  nonsense  indulged  in 
among  us,  and  a  tendency  to  practical  joking,  one  exam- 
ple of  which  still  lives  in  my  memory. 

We  had  all  been  sitting  one  evening — singing,  shouting, 
chaffing,  according  to  our  wont — when  the  president  of 
the  night  noticed  that  one  of  the  company  had  fallen  into 
a  deep  and  drunken  sleep,  his  head  reclining  on  his  arms, 
which  were  crossed  upon  the  table.  He  immediately 
l)roposed  this  as  a  favoi'able  opportunity  for  trying  the 
strength  of  mind  on  which  Eckhardt,  the  sleeper,  so  much 
prided  himself.  He  told  us  to  go  on  with  our  different 
occupations.  Some  were  to  talk,  some  to  play  dominoes, 
some  billiards ;  others  were  to  be  drinking  together. 
Meanwhile,  he  would  extinguish  the  lamps;  but  we  were 
all  to  continue  our  amusements  as  though  the  room  were 
still  lighted,  and,  if  called  upon,  to  declare  that  such  was 
the  case.  He  then  turned  out  the  lamps,  and,  by  a  sharp 
kick,  awakened  the  drunken  man.  The  clamor,  the 
smoke,  the  shouting,  in  which  this  wretched  being  had 
closed  his  eyes,  all  greeted  him  on  his  arrival;  one  thing 
alone,  the  light,  was  absent;  and  he  commenced  to  attack 
us  for  having  left  him  in  the  dark. 

"What  the  deuce  are  you  at,"  he  asked,  "  to  l)e  sitting 
here  in  the  darkness  of  Hades  ?" 

"  Ah,  bah!"  said  tlie  i)resident.  "Sleep  off  thy  drunken 
lits,  Franz,  and  leave  us  alone.  Come,  Kraus,  there's  a 
cannon!"  and  a  sharp  stroke  on  the  billiard-balls  rang 
through  the  room. 

"IJravo!"  shouted  another  of  the  cons})irators.    "Point, 


YOUTH  AND  EDUCATION.  53 

quinte  et  quatorze  !  The  game's  mine  !"  and  the  cards, 
thrown  exulthigly  into  the  air,  fell  with  a  crash  upon  the 
table. 

"Stop!"  cried  the  wretched  Eckhardt,  "one  moment, 
stop!     Why  have  you  thus  darkened  the  room?" 

"  Thou  art  drunk  !"  roared  another.  "  'Tis  thou  art 
dark,  and  not  the  room.  The  room  is  as  light  as  day ! 
Here,  Schimmel-Hase,  thou  hast  not  the  double  six  ?  Then 
I  am  out!"  and  he  rattled  the  dominoes  as  he  spoke. 

"What!"  shrieked  the  victim,  in  a  yell  of  agony  never 
to  be  forgotten,  "  say  you  the  room  is  lighted,  and  you  are 
all  playing,  while  I  cannot  see  you  ?  O  Almighty  God, 
I  am  struck  blind  !" 

He  fell  down  in  a  heap  across  the  table,  and  it  was 
weeks  before  he  fully  recovered. 

Meanwhile,  though  I  was,  like  Mr.  Gray's  young  Eton 
friends,  "unmindful  of  my  doom,"  with  no  thought  of 
anything  to  come,  and  no  care  at  all,  my  dear  mother  was 
seeing  what  interest  she  could  exert  in  order  to  obtain  for 
me  a  Government  appointment;  and  finding  my  father's 
old  friend,  the  Marquis  of  Clanricarde,  had  joined  Lord 
John  Russell's  recently-formed  Ministry  as  Postmaster- 
general,  she  ventured  on  writing  to  him,  reminding  him 
of  old  Adelphi  days,  and  asking  his  assistance.  Lord 
Clanricarde  replied  instantly,  speaking  in  the  warmest 
terms  of  my  father,  and  of  his  desire  to  befriend  us.  At 
the  immediate  moment  he  could  do  nothing,  but  a  consid- 
erable increase  was  about  to  be  made  to  the  strength  of 
the  Secretary's  office,  the  best  in  respect  of  pay  and  po- 
sition in  the  Post-office,  and  he  would  certainly  not  forget 
my  mother's  application  when  the  proper  time  arrived.  I 
am  afraid  my  mother  was  a  little  sceptical  as  to  a  patron's 
memory;  but  Lord  Clanricarde  was  as  good  as — nay,  bet- 
ter than — his  word.  A  few  months  afterwards  he  sent 
for  my  mother,  and  asked  for  more  particulars  concerning 
me,  my  age,  education,  etc.  When  he  heard  I  was  not  yet 
sixteen,  he  shook  his  head,  fearing  I  should  be  too  young 
for  a  berth  "  on  the  establishment "  such  as  he  had  pur- 
posed for  me,  but  in  any  case  he  promised  to  make  me 


54  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

an  "extra"  clerk.  He  thought  it  better  I  should  re- 
turn home  at  once,  and  come  with  my  mother  to  see 
him. 

So,  summoned  to  return  at  once,  I  left  Dilsseldorf  and 
its  delights,  and  arrived  in  London,  going  the  next  day 
with  my  mother  to  call  on  Lord  Clauricarde  in  Carlton 
House  Terrace.  I  see  him  now,  as  at  that  first  interview, 
a  tall,  thin,  aristocratic  man,  bald  and  bland,  wearing — 
novelties  in  my  unaccustomed  eyes  —  tight  pantaloons, 
strij^ed  silk  socks,  and  pumps.  He  received  us  most 
kindly,  took  my  hand,  saying — as  every  one  used  to  say — 
"How  wonderfully  like  your  father!"  and,  after  a  little 
chat,  turned  to  my  mother  with  his  pleasant  smile,  and 
said,  "It  will  be  all  right,  Mrs.  Yates;  the  boy  is  so  big 
and  strong,  no  one  will  guess  he  is  not  sixteen,  so  we'll  put 
him  on  the  establishment  at  once."  Not  by  very  many 
the  only  time  that  my  thews  and  sinews  have  stood  me  in 
good  account,  but  perhaps  the  most  important.  A  Aveek 
later  I  received  my  appointment  as  No.  8  in  a  list  of  thir- 
teen clerks  added  to  the  establishment  of  the  Secretary's 
office,  St.  Martin's-le-Grand. 


EARLY  DAYS  LN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  55 


CHAPTER  III. 

EAELY   DAYS   IN  THE   POST-OFFICE. 

I  ENTERED  the  Post-officG  service  on  the  11th  March, 
1847,  and  remained  in  it  exactly  twenty-five  years.  I  was 
not  quite  sixteen  when  I  received  my  appointment,  and  I 
was  nearly  forty-one  when  I  resigned  it;  so  that  I  suppose 
the  best  years  of  my  life  were  passed  in  the  Government 
employ.  Looking  at  what  has  happened  since,  I  feel  that 
I  might  very  possibly  have  employed  this  time  far  more 
profitably.  There  were  several  occasions  on  which,  had  I 
chosen  to  give  up  the  small  certainty,  I  could  have  ob- 
tained valuable  literary  and  journalistic  appointments,  the 
holding  of  which  was  incompatible  with  my  daily  attend- 
ance at  St.  Martin's -le- Grand.  The  double  work  was 
heavy,  and  not  unfrequently  harassing.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  routine  of  a  public  office,  in  which  certain  things 
have  necessarily  to  be  done  at  certain  stated  times,  gave 
me  business  habits  and  appreciation  of  the  necessity  of 
punctuality,  which  have  been  of  great  value  to  me  in  my 
other  career. 

I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  the  change  in  the  work, 
from  the  dry  official  records  of  facts  to  the  light  essay  or 
ianciinl  feuilleton,  did  not  enable  me  to  get  through  more 
work  than  if  all  the  hours  of  labor  had  been  devoted  to 
one  kind  of  subject.  And  I  am  quite  sure  that,  though 
the  pay  was  small,  and  the  work  not  particularly  conge- 
nial ;  though  I  was  generally  poor  and  always  anxious  ; 
though  my  health  was  not  very  good,  and  my  cares  were 
perpetually  increasing,  I  extracted  as  much  happiness  out 
of  my  position  as  Avas  possible — more,  probably,  than  I 
could  have  found  in  most  other  stations  in  life,  where  the 
responsibility  would  have  been  greater.  I  grumbled  at 
my  lot,  as  we  all  do,  but  I  know  that  I  never  returned 


56  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

from  my  annual  holiday  without  a  half-pleasurable  sensa- 
tion at  being  back.  My  animal  spirits  were  excellent.  I 
was,  I  am  pleased  to  think,  very  popular  with  most  of  my 
comrades  ;  and  the  authorities,  if  not  entirely  in  sympa- 
thy with  some  of  my  eccentricities,  were,  on  the  whole, 
indulgent,  and  inclined  not  to  see  anything  that  was  not 
specially  brought  under  their  notice.  In  my  earliest  offi- 
cial days  I  formed  one  or  two  intimate  friendship's  which 
exist  to  the  present  hour,  having  never  known  a  shadow. 
And  generally  in  the  course  of  every  two  or  three  months 
I  find  my  way  to  St.  Martin's — not,  however,  to  the  build- 
ing in  which  my  time  AV^as  passed;  that  has  been  given  up 
entirely  to  those  engaged  in  letter-sorting,  etc. — and  have 
a  chat  with  old  colleagues  over  old  times. 

A  superstitious  person  might  possibly  have  thought  it 
an  unfavorable  omen  for  my  future  career  that  the  pole 
of  the  omnibus  on  Avhich  I  journeyed  into  the  City  broke 
as  we  were  descending  what  in  those  days  was  a  very 
steej)  hill  between  Hatton  Garden  and  Farringdon  Street, 
and  that  we  nearly  were  upset ;  but  one  is  not  super- 
stitious at  sixteen,  and  I  was  only  a  little  nervous  when  I 
presented  myself  at  the  lobby  of  the  Secretary's  office. 
My  godfather,  Edmund  Byng,  had  mentioned  my  ap- 
pointment to  two  young  fellows  of  his  acquaintance  who 
were  in  the  office,  and  they  speedily  introduced  them- 
selves to  me  and  set  me  at  my  ease.  There  was  no  ex- 
amination in  those  days  ;  I  had  not  even  to  write  from 
dictation,  or  do  a  rule-of -three  sum,  as  had  Anthony  Trol- 
lope  thirteen  years  before. 

After  a  few  days'  probation  in  the  Registry,  where  the 
receipt  and  disposal  of  the  various  communications  ad- 
dressed to  the  dejjartment  were  recorded  in  huge  ledgers, 
I  was  placed  in  the  money-order  department  of  the  Sec- 
retary's office — i.e.,  where  the  correspondence  relating  to 
money -orders  with  the  i>uljlic  and  the  j)ostmasters  was 
carried  on  ;  and  tliere  I  remained  about  two  years.  Two 
years  of  almost  unalloyed  official  ])ai)piness  !  We  were 
about  twelve  or  fifteen  clerks  altogetiier,  dispersed  in 
three  or  four  rooms.  Our  principal  was  a  bald-Iieaded, 
middle-agcfl  man,  given  to  taking  Hiuiff  and  imbibing  a 


fiARLY  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  5l 

cheap  Marsala — a  man  full  of  strange  oaths  without  any 
modern  instances,  but  of  a  kindly  nature,  and  disposed  to 
make  allowance  for  youth.  There  were  three  or  four 
fellows  not  much  older  than  myself,  and  we  were  always 
telling  the  most  ridiculous  stories  and  playing  the  wildest 
pranks.  Our  room  had  a  door  of  communication  with 
that  of  the  chief  clerk,  an  old  gentleman  w^  ho  had  the 
reputation  of  being  a  little  thick  and  cloudy  after  lunch- 
eon. One  day  some  of  the  fellows,  while  larking,  upset 
a  huge  screen,  which  fell  with  a  resounding  bang.  I  had 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  but  was  advancing  to  pick  u]) 
the  screen,  when  the  chief  clerk  entered,  Hushed  with 
lunch  and  rage.  "What  the  devil's  this  row?"  he  called 
out ;  then,  seeing  me — he  had  scarcely  ever  noticed  me 
before  —  he  graciously  said,  "  Oh,  it's  you,  is  it,  sir  ? 
Please  recollect  you're  not  now  on  the  boards  of  the 
Adelphi !"  Again  the  old  reproach  of  the  school-days 
cropping  up  !  It  seemed  as  if  it  were  never  to  be  got  rid 
of! 

I  am  sure,  from  all  I  hear,  that  the  young  gentlemen 
by  whom  the  Secretary's  office  is  now  junior -officered, 
and  who  are  mostly,  I  believe,  graduates  of  the  universi- 
ties or  scions  of  the  aristocracy,  would  scarcely  believe 
the  details  of  the  audacious  fun  which  used  to  be  perpe- 
trated by  their  predecessors  just  before  the  year  1850,  so 
I  will  relate  one  or  two  special  instances. 

My  great  chum  in  those  days  was  a  man  about  ten 
years  older  than  myself,  whom,  for  distinction's  sake,  I 
w'ill  call  Pitt,  and  who  was  the  most  audacious  practical 
joker  I  have  ever  met.  He  had  the  most  charming  man- 
ners and  the  most  perfect  sang-froid;  nothing  ever  upset 
his  balance,  and  he  could  perpetrate  the  most  daring 
hoax  without  altering  a  muscle  of  his  face.  Two  of  his 
exploits  I  remember  well.  At  the  corner  of  one  of  the 
streets  running  from  the  Strand  to  the  river,  near  St. 
Mary's  Church,  was  a  well  -  known  Italian  warehouse. 
One  day,  as  Pitt  and  I  were  walking  westward  after  of- 
fice-hours, we  saw  hanging  at  the  shop-door  a  bundle  of 
bananas,  with  an  inscription,  "The  last  bananas  we  shall 
receive  this  season."     Pitt  stopped  and  read  the  placard. 

3* 


58  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

"  That  is  very  curious,"  he  said,  "  and  must  be  inquired 
into  !"  I  followed  him  up  the  shop,  a  long,  low  addition 
to  the  original  house,  imtil  we  reached  the  counter  at  the 
far  end,  where  two  or  three  shopmen  were  busy  serving 

customers.     "Could  I  speak  to  JMr. ?"  asked  Pitt, 

mentioning  the  name  he  had  read  on  the  shop-door,  and 
speaking  with  the  greatest  earnestness.  "He's  in,  sir, 
but  he's  having  his  tea  ;  but  if  you  particularly  want  him, 
I'll  call  him."  " Thank  you,  I  do  want  a  word\ith  him." 
The  proprietor  came  out  of  his  parlor,  wiping  his  mouth, 
and,  rounding  the  counter,  was  immediately  laid  hold  of 
by  Pitt,  who  took  him  by  the  elbow  and  led  him,  aston- 
ished, to  the  door.  Arrived  there,  Pitt  pointed  to  the 
bananas.  "Are  these  positively  the  very  last  bananas 
that  you  will  receive  this  season  ?"  "  Yes,"  said  the  man, 
"they  are.  What  of  it?"  "Is  there  no  probability, 
then,  of  your  having  another  batch?"  "Xo — not  that! 
know  of.  What  of  it  ?"  said  the  man,  with  a  dawning 
suspicion  of  being  hoaxed,  but  still  impressed  by  Pitt's 
excellent  manner.  "  What  of  it  ?  Well,  I  think  it  a 
most  interesting  circumstance  !  Deeply  obliged  to  you. 
Good-morning!"  And  he  took  off  his  hat  with  an  air, 
and  left  the  man,  purple  and  speechless,  on  his  own 
threshold. 

Another  of  his  practical  jokes  was  even  more  auda- 
cious. Middle-aged  readers  will  possibly  remember  that 
the  original  shop  for  Holloway's  patent  medicines  was  at 
the  extremity  of  the  Strand,  a  few  doors  west  of  Temple 
Bar.  It  was  a  long  shop,  with  a  narrow  counter  running 
tlie  length  of  it,  at  which  sat  a  number  of  men,  occupied 
in  rolling  the  pills,  spreading  the  ointment,  etc.  Pitt  had 
often  told  me  he  felt  curiously  attracted  to  that  shop  ; 
and  one  day,  as  we  were  passing,  he  said, "  Can  you  keej) 
grave  for  iivc  minutes  ?"  I  told  him  I  tliought  I  could, 
little  guessing  to  what  test  my  gravity  was  to  be  subject- 
ed. "  Then  come  along !"  And  the  next  minute  he 
sprang  from  my  side  into  the  shop,  where,  in  the  open 
space  before  the  counter,  he  began  leaping  about  and 
tlirowing  up  his  legs  with  an  agility  which,  in  those  pra3- 
Vokes  days,  was  unknown.     The  shopmen  stared  in  won- 


EABLT  DATS  D.'  THE  PtjSTJJFFICE  59 

der,  and  one  of  them  was  advancing,  when  Pitt  bounded 
in  front  of  him,  and  asked,  "  You  don't  know  me  ?  you 
don't  recocTiize  me?^  The  shopman,  evidently  takinsr 
him  for  a  lunatic,  was  muttering  something  about  not 
having  the  pleasure,  when  Pitt,  pointing  to  the  others, 
asked,  "  Do  none  of  those  recognize  me "?"  A  general 
chorus  of  "  Xo  I"'  "  I  don't  wonder  at  it  I"  said  Pitt, 
"  When  I  was  last  in  this  shop,  I  was  carried  in  on  the 
cabman's  back — couldn't  walk  a  step — ^bad  legs  of  forty 
years'  stan<iincr  I  But  now,  thanks  to  vour  invaluable 
pills  and  ointment — ^lo^k  here!  and  here!"  Once  more 
he  bounded  and  danced  up  and  down  the  shop,  and  then 
we  ran  for  our  lives. 

It  was  my  prominent  share  in  the  perpetration  of  these 
jokes  that  first  pr<x-ure<i  me  the  honor  of  an  interview 
with  Mr. — afterwanis  Sir  Rowland — Hill,  who  was  most 
kind  and  friendly  with  me  so  long  as  he  Kved,  Our  first 
meeting,  however,  scarcely  boded  well  for  the  future. 
There  had  been  a  tremendous  row,  not  unconnected  with 
the  peppering,  with  p^ras  and  pellets  of  saturate!  blotting- 
paper,  of  the  passers-by  in  Foster  Lane,  a  thoroughfare 
on  which  our  windows  looked ;  and  I,  who  had  been 
caught  by  one  of  the  authorities  in  the  very  act,  had  been 
"  reported--' 

Rowland  Hill  was  then  in  a  transition  state;  he  had 
carried  out  his  penny-postage  scheme,  and  receive!  some 
of  Ms  rewards;  but  he  had  many  bitter,  p-DwerfuL  and 
unscrupulous  enemies,  who  had  succeeded  in  having  him 
removed  from  a  berth  at  the  Treasury,  to  which  he  had 
been  appointed,  on  the  plea  that  his  services  were  no 
longer  required.  There  had.  however,  been  a  loud  ex- 
pression of  public  feeling;  ^iLr.  Hill  had  been  present- 
G-d  with  a  testimonial  raise!  by  public  subscription,  and 
amountinsr  to  nearly  fourteen  thousand  pounds :  and  in 
the  vear  before  I  joined  the  service  he  had  been  pitch- 
forked,  into  the  department  in  a  somewhat  anomal:  .s  t  :- 
sition.  He  was  not  made  Secretary  of  the  Post-c±^c — 
that  imp<3rtant  berth  had  been  for  years  held  by  Colonel 
Maberly ;  Mr.  Hill  was  called  secretary  to  the  Postmas- 
ter-general, a  ri<!iculous  title  for  a  sham  and  non-€iistent 


60  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOKDON  LIFE. 

position.  The  Post-office  had  its  secretary,  the  Post' 
master -general  had  his  jDrivate  secretary,  and  no  other 
was  required.  But  it  was  necessary  to  find  a  berth  at 
St.  Martin's  -  le  -  Grand  for  Mr.  Hill,  and  he  did  not  of 
course  care  what  it  was  called,  provided  he  got  recog- 
nized status  and  sufficient  salary.  His  duties  were  ar- 
ranged, so  far  as  possible,  not  to  clash  with  Colonel 
Maberly,  who  was  exceedingly  jealous  of  the  new  arrival, 
and  hated  "  the  man  from  Birmingham,"  as  he  always 
called  him,  with  a  holy  hatred.  Mr.  Hill,  with  two  or 
three  clerks,  prepared  statistical  returns,  suggested  econo- 
mies, and  also  had  the  supervision  of  that  secretarial 
money -order  department  in  which  I  worked.  So  that 
when,  one  morning,  I  was  told  "  Mr.  'Ill "  wished  to  speak 
to  me,  I  felt  as  I  had  not  felt  since  Dr.  Dyne's  invitation 
to  his  sanctum  at  Highgate  School. 

I  found  him  seated  at  his  desk,  a  middle-aged  man  of 
medium  height  and  slight  build,  bald-headed,  with  deep- 
set  gray  eyes,  wearing  spectacles,  and  with  a  grave  but 
not  unkind  expression.  After  exchanging  bows,  he  com- 
menced by  saying  that  my  name  had  been  mentioned  to 
him  by  his  old  friend  Charles  Manby,  who  was,  he  be- 
lieved, my  guardian.  I  admitted  the  fact,  and  began  to 
think  I  was  getting  on  pretty  well,  not  having  been  sum- 
marily dismissed,  as  I  had  half  anticipated.  "  I  have 
been  making  some  inquiries  about  you,  Mr.  Yates,"  he 
continued,  "and  I  find  you're  very  popular,  and  have 
plenty  of  energy  and  ability,  and  can  do  very  good  work 
if  you  choose,  but  that  you  suffer  under  a  superfluity  of 
animal  spirits."  He  stopped,  and  looked  at  me  keenly 
throiigli  his  glasses,  while  I  muttered  something  about 
"not  being  aware  of  it."  "So  I'm  told,"  he  said,  "and 
I'm  going  to  ask  you  one  or  two  questions.  Where  do 
you  live?"  "AVitli  my  mother,  sir,  in  St.  John's  Wood 
— the  Aljjha  lload."  "Ah,"  said  he,  "a  very  nice  part, 
though  a  little  too  far  away.  Now,  how  do  you  come 
down  to  the  Office  ?"  "  Generally  on  the  top  of  the  omni- 
bus, sir."  "Ah,  I  thought  so.  Now,  if  in  future  you 
would  iralk  down  to  the  Office,  IMr.  Yates,  I  think  you'll 
liiid  it  would  luring  those  animal  spirits  to  a  jiroju-r  level." 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  TUE  POST-OFFICE.  61 

And  I  bowed  myself  out,  too  delighted  at  having  escaped 
so  easily. 

I  am  afraid  that  I  never  followed  my  chief's  well-meant 
advice,  but  to  the  end  of  my  career  persisted  in  riding 
down  to  the  Office.  In  later  days,  and  in  the  summer,  I 
would  come  on  horseback  through  the  jmrks,  and  putting 
ujD  my  horse  in  Westminster  would  go  on  into  the  City 
by  boat.  These,  however,  were  my  omnibus  days.  On 
the  morning  journey  the  vehicle  was  completely  filled  by 
"regulars,"  i.e.,  passengers  who  invariably  occupied  the 
same  seat,  which  they  retained  by  a  weekly  payment. 
My  place  was  next  the  driver.  Jack  Harris,  a  wonderfully 
humorous  fellow,  whose  queer  views  of  the  world  and 
real  native  wit  afforded  me  the  greatest  amusement.  A 
dozen  of  the  best  omnibus  sketches  in  Punch  were  founded 
on  scenes  which  had  occurred  with  this  fellow,  and  which 
I  described  to  John  Leech,  whose  usually  gi-ave  face 
would  light  up  as  he  listened,  and  who  would  reproduce 
them  with  inimitable  fun. 

I  only  had  one  other  interview  with  Mr.  Hill  in  those 
early  days,  though  in  later  official  life  I  was  constantly  in 
personal  communication  with  him.  It  was  the  custom  in 
those  days — which  were,  I  suppose,  before  the  invention  of 
copying-machines — to  copy  into  various  enormous  books 
every  official  document,  whether  minute  to  the  Postmas- 
ter-general, instructions  to  the  officers  of  the  staff,  or 
letter,  and  even  simple  acknowledgment  of  receipt  of 
their  communication  to  the  public.  The  duty  devolved 
on  the  juniors,  who  took  it  in  turn  to  remain  after  the 
close  of  the  official  hours,  ten  till  four,  and  discharge  it. 
One  day  I  not  merely  copied  a  letter  which  had  been 
written  at  Mr.  Hill's  instance,  but,  having  rather  an  imita- 
tive pen,  I  succeeded  in  producing  a  very  fair  copy  of  his 
signature  at  its  close.  Some  time  after,  I  was  again  sum- 
moned into  his  presence.  "Is  that  your  copying?"  asked 
Mr.  Hill,  pointing  to  the  letter.  I  acknowledged  it. 
"And  is  that  also  your  work?"  with  his  finger  on  the 
signature.  With  cheeks  aflame  I  bowed  in  acquiescence. 
"It's  very  clever,"  he  said — "very  clever  indeed;  but 
don't  you  think,"  he   added,  quite  quietly — -"don't  you 


62  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

think,  Mr.  Yates,  Ws  rather  a  dayigerous  accomplish- 
ment?'''' He  emphasized  his  words  Avith  a  keen  glance 
through  his  spectacles,  and  I  have  never  copied  a  signa- 
ture since. 

At  the  end  of  two  years  I  Avas  transferred  to  another 
branch  of  the  Secretary's  office,  and  placed  under  the 
care  of  John  Strange  Baker,  to  whom  I  owe  my  busi- 
ness training,  my  love  for  English  literature,  and  many 
of  the  happiest  hours  of  my  life.  It  was  a  critical  peri- 
od with  me  just  then;  for  though  during  my  school-days 
I  had  imbibed  a  taste  for  reading  in  a  small  way,  the 
fact  of  becoming  my  own  master,  and  the  introduction 
to  the  grosser  pleasures  of  London  life,  had  almost  extin- 
guished it,  and  I  was  degenerating  into  rather  a  rowdy 
farceur,  a  senseless,  sensuous,  funny-story-telling,  practi- 
cal-joke-playing kind  of  cub,  when  I  was  rescued  by  my 
official  apprenticeship  to  John  Baker. 

I  knew  my  Byron  and  Moore  and  Scott  tolerably 
well,  but  very  little  of  Wordsworth,  and  had  never  heard 
the  name  of  Tennyson.  With  my  new  friend  I  made  ac- 
quaintance with  Macaulay  as  a  prose-writer  ("  The  Laj^s 
of  Ancient  Rome"  had  been  favorite  spouting-pieces  at 
Highgate),  and  after  the  Essays  went  through  the  "  His- 
tory of  England,"  then  just  in  course  of  publication. 
Goldsmith,  Boswell,  Lamb,  De  Quincey,  Coleridge,  and 
ILizlitt  are  all  associated  in  my  mind  with  those  days, 
whence  also  I  date  my  first  real  appreciation  of  the  worth 
of  Shaks})eare,  thougli  I  had  lived  hi  a  world  of  Shak- 
spearian  appreciation  and  quotation  from  my  childhood. 
My  friend,  who  happily  still  survives  as  one  of  the  prin- 
cipals at  St.  Martin's-le-Grand,  was  an  admirable  master 
of  official  style,  and  had  the  power  of  marshalling  Ins 
facts  and  exjiressing  himself  in  concise  sentences,  which 
must  have  been  specially  grateful  to  our  chief,  Colonel 
]\Laberly,  wlio  abhorred  what  he  called  "  slip-slop."  Gift- 
ed with  a  large  stock  of  patience  and  toleration ;  gentle, 
kindlj',  full  of  fun  himself,  and  Avith  a  keen  ajtpreciation 
of  humor;  an  excellent  official  guide  and  a  charming  j)ri- 
vate  friend,  lie  was  essentially  a  man  to  obtain  influence 
over  a  youth  of  my  earnest  eager  tem])crament,  an  influ- 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  THE   POST-OFFICE.  G3 

ence  which  was  always  wholesomely  and  beneficially  ex- 
ercised. 

Of  very  different  calibre  in  mind  and  body  and  brain 
was  another  companion  of  those  days,  James  Kenney,  the 
eldest  son  of  Kenney  the  dramatist — a  strange,  weird  lit- 
tle man,  with  bright  eyes  and  shaven  cheeks  and  stubbly 
black  hair,  looking  something  between  an  actor  and  an 
abbe.  There  was,  however,  considerably  more  of  the  act- 
or than  the  abbe  about  him.  He  had  lived  much  in 
France,  his  mother  was  a  Frenchwoman,  and  he  spoke 
with  a  strong  foreign  accent,  in  which  he  would  give 
forth  the  funniest  stories,  the  quaintest  sayings,  which 
for  a  long  time  imjoressed  us  deeply  with  his  talent  and 
wit,  until  we  discovered  that  stories,  sayings,  the  very 
tones  in  which  they  were  narrated  and  the  gestures  with 
which  he  embellished  them,  were  borrowed  bodily  from 
his  younger  brother,  Charles  Lamb  Kenney,  who  achieved 
some  distinction  with  his  pen,  and  as  an  oral  wit  was 
among  the  first  flight.  James  posed  as  a  scientific  and 
mechanical  genius,  and  always  carried  about  with  him 
a  black  bag  in  which  he  had  portions  of  a  brass  machine, 
which  he  would  take  out  during  the  pauses  of  the  official 
work  and  commence  to  scrape,  hammer,  and  file  at,  send- 
ing us  into  paroxysms  of  teeth-on-edge  discomfort.  He 
had  an  actual  substratum  of  cleverness,  but  it  was  wholly 
unavailable  in  a  public  ofiice,  and  his  life  was  frittered 
away  without  his  making  any  mark. 

In  my  new  position  I  saw  for  the  first  time  the  virtu- 
al head  of  my  office,  the  Secretary,  Colonel  Maberly,*  and 
was  frequently  brought  into  communication  with  him  so 
long  as  he  remained  with  us.  I  cannot  understand  how 
Anthony  Trollope,  as  he  narrates  in  his  "Autobiography," 
found  Colonel  Maberly  cruel  and  unjust ;  he  may  have 
liad  a  personal  dislike  to  Trollope,  whose  manner,  I  fear, 
was  not  conciliating;  but  though  he  was  always  pleasant 


*  The  Postmaster-general  is,  of  course,  the  real  head  of  the  Post-office, 
but  to  most  of  the  clerks  he  is  a  veiled  Mokanna;  besides,  Postmaster- 
geuerals  "  come  and  go  "  with  Ministers,  while  the  Secretary,  until  death 
or  resignation  releases  him,  "  goes  on  forever." 


64  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

to  me  after  a  fashion,  his  chief  characteristic  was,  I  think, 
indifference.  He  liked  his  status  at  the  Post  -  office,  he 
liked  the  salary  which  it  gave  him,  he  was  fond  of  mon- 
ey, and  he  went  through  the  work ;  but  he  was  an  Irish 
landlord — a  very  different  position  then  from  what  it  is 
now;  and  his  mind  was  running  on  whether  Tim  Mooney 
would  pay  his  rent  or  Mick  Reilly  the  bailiff  would  get 
a  good  price  for  the  heifer.  He  was  married  to  a  beau- 
tiful and  brilliant  lady,  who  wrote  fashionable  novels  and 
went  into  society,  so  he  had  much  besides  the  Post-office 
to  occupy  his  thoughts. 

He  used  to  arrive  about  eleven  o'clock,  and  announce 
his  arrival  by  tearing  at  the  bell  for  his  breakfast.  This 
bell  brought  the  head  messenger,  whose  services  he  arro- 
gated to  himself,  who,  being  a  venerable-looking  and  em- 
inently respectable  personage,  probably  well-to-do  in  the 
world,  was  disgusted  at  having  to  kneel  at  the  colonel's 
feet,  and  receive  the  colonel's  dirty  boots  into  his  arms 
with  the  short  adjuration,  "Now,  Francis,  my  straps!" 
He  wrote  a  most  extraordinary  illegible  hand,  and  per- 
haps for  that  reason  scarcely  any  holograjjh  beyond  his 
signature  is  to  be  found  in  the  official  records.  The  cus- 
tom was  for  certain  clerks  of  recognized  status,  who  had 
a  distinct  portion  of  the  official  work  in  their  charge,  to 
submit  the  reports  which  had  been  received  from  the 
postmasters  or  district  surveyors,  on  comi)laints  or  sug- 
gestions of  the  public,  to  the  Secretary,  and  receive  his 
instructions  as  to  the  course  to  be  pursued  or  the  style 
of  reply  to  be  sent.  This  performance  we  used  to  call 
"  taking  in  j)apers  to  the  colonel,"  and  a  very  curious 
])erformancc  it  was. 

The  colonel,  a  big,  heavily -built,  elderly  man,  would 
sit  in  a  big  chair,  with  his  liandkerchief  over  his  knees 
and  two  or  three  private  letters  before  him.  Into  a 
closely -neighboring  scat  the  clerk  would  drop,  placing 
liis  array  of  official  documents  on  the  table.  Greetings 
exclianged,  the  colonel,  reading  liis  jjrivate  letters,  would 
dig  liis  elbow  into  tlie  clerk's  ribs,  saying,  "Well,  my 
good  follow,  what  have  you  got  there  —  very  important 
l»apers,  ell  V"     "I    don't   know,  sir ;    Homc   of   them    are. 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  65 

perhaps — "  "Yes,  yes,  my  good  fellow;  no  doubt  you 
think  they're  very  important ;  I  call  them  d d  two- 
penny-ha'penny !  Now  read,  my  good  fellow,  read!" 
Thus  adjured,  the  clerk  would  commence  reading  aloud 
one  of  his  documents.  The  colonel,  still  half  engaged 
with  his  private  correspondence,  would  hear  enough  to 
make  him  keep  up  a  running  commentary  of  disparaging 
grunts:  "Pooh!  stuff!  upon  my  soul!"  etc.  Then  the 
clerk,  having  come  to  the  end  of  the  manuscript,  would 
stop,  waiting  for  orders ;  and  there  would  ensue  a  dead 
silence,  broken  by  the  colonel,  who,  having  finished  his 
private  letters,  would  look  up  and  say,  "Well,  my  good 
fellow,  well?"  "That's  all,  sir."  "And  quite  enough 
too.  Go  on  to  the  next !"  "  But  what  shall  I  say  to  this 
applicant,  sir  ?"     "  Say  to  him  ?    Tell  him  to  go  and  be 

d d,  my  good    fellow !"  and  on  our  own  reading  of 

those  instructions  we  had  very  frequently  to  act. 

With  all  this,  Colonel  Maberly  was  a  clear-headed  man 
of  business  ;  old-fashioned,  inclined  to  let  matters  run  in 
their  ordinary  groove,  detesting  all  projects  of  reform, 
and  having  an  abiding  horror  of  Rowland  Hill.  As  I 
have  said,  he  was  with  me  generally  easily  good-natured, 
but  he  could  assume  an  air  of  hauteur  and  be  uncom- 
monly unpleasant  sometimes ;  and  I  remember  that  when 
on  a  little  slip  of  written  memoranda  which  used  to  be 
kept  on  the  edge  of  his  green  slope -desk  we  saw  the 
words,  "Kate  —  money,"  we  might  generally  expect  to 
find  the  colonel's  temper  rather  short  that  morning. 

Among  those  clerks  who  were  not  brought  much  into 
communication  with  him  he  was  supposed  to  be  very  high 
and  haughty,  and  in  connection  with  this  trait  there  was 
a  good  story  told  of  him  shortly  after  I  joined  the  ser- 
vice. It  appears  that  one  of  Lord  Clanricarde's  recent 
appointments,  a  strapping  Irish  lad  fresh  from  Galway, 
wished  to  effect  an  exchange  of  duties  with  a  brother 
clerk  named  Williams,  whose  exact  whereabouts  he  did 
not  know.  He  roamed  through  the  unfamiliar  passages 
until  he  met  a  young  fellow,  of  whom  he  inquired  where 
Williams  was  to  be  found.  The  young  fellow  was  a 
practical  humorist,  and  at  once  comprehending  the  situ- 


66  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

ation,  pointed  to  the  door  of  the  Secretary's  room  and 
disappeared.  In  went  the  neophyte  without  an  instant's 
hesitation,  and  found  the  colonel  writing  at  his  desk. 
*'  Is  it  Williams  ye  are  ?"  asked  the  Galwegian.  "  Eh  ?" 
cried  the  astonished  colonel,  raising  his  head.  "Are  ye 
Williams,  and  will  ye  take  me  waithin'  duty — "  But 
here  the  outraged  colonel  flung  down  his  pen,  and  waving 
off  the  intruder  with  both  arms,  called  in  a  hollow  voice, 
"  Go  away,  man  !" 

The  Postmaster-generalship  being  one  of  those  berths 
which  are  vacated  on  a  change  of  ministry,  my  kind 
friend  Lord  Clanricarde  did  not  remain  very  long  in  of- 
fice. While  at  the  head  of  affairs,  he  took  several  oppor- 
tunities of  showing  that  he  had  not  forgotten  me.  He 
had  me  sent  out  to  assist  one  of  the  district  surveyors  in 
his  travels  of  inspection  round  the  country  oflices,  a  duty 
which,  as  it  provided  "per  diem"  and  travelling  allow- 
ances in  addition  to  the  salary,  and  gave  one  the  chance 
of  becoming  acquainted  with  much  of  the  internal  work- 
ing of  the  department,  was  in  every  way  a  really  good 
thing  for  a  young  man.  I  am  afraid,  hoAvever,  that,  just 
launching  as  I  was  into  the  pleasures  of  London  life,  I 
scarcely  appreciated  his  kindness  as  I  ought ;  and  I  know 
that  when,  later  on,  I  was  occasionally  sent  out  to  "  take 
charge"  of  a  country  post-oflice  —  i.e.,  to  represent  the 
postmaster,  who  through  some  dereliction  of  duty  had 
been  temporarily  suspended  from  exercising  his  functions 
— I  used  to  groan  in  s})int  at  my  exile  from  all  I  lovetl, 
lliough  of  course  I  could  make  no  open  demonstration. 
The  ghastly  days  and  nights  I  have  passed  in  such  places 
as  Stony  Stratford  and  Sittingbourne,  with  a  dull,  me- 
clianical  duty  to  perform,  and  without  a  congenial  soul 
with  whom  to  exchange  an  idea,  are  still  present  to  my 
memory. 

A  year  after  I  first  entered  tlie  service  I  was  sent  to 
Winchficld,  a  desolate  railway-station  on  the  South-west- 
ern Railway,  near  IJasingstoke,  wliere  it  liad  been  decided 
to  open  a  ]»ost-otru'e  for  llie  convenience  of  tlie  Speaker, 
Mr.  Sliaw-l^efevre,  wlio  livecl  in  (he  neiglilxtrliood,  and 
otlier  local  inaixnates.     1   was  selected  (o  inslitict  in  his 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  07 

duties  the  young  man  Avho  had  been  appointed  postmas- 
ter ;  and  while  I  was  inculcating  the  very  small  amount 
of  ofl&cial  lore  which  I  myself  possessed,  the  news  came 
of  the  intended  Chartist  demonstration  of  the  10th  of 
April,  1848.  I  was  not  going  to  be  left  out  of  such  a 
chance  of  excitement ;  so  I  rushed  up  to  London  for  a 
couple  of  days,  got  myself  sworn  in  as  a  sj)ecial  constable 
for  Marylebone,  mustered  with  my  division  at  what  used 
to  be  Captain  Hall's  riding-school,  at  the  top  of  Albany 
Street,  and  then  turned  out  to  enjoy  the  fun  of  the  streets 
on  my  own  account. 

Lord  Clanricarde's  kindness  continued  while  he  lived, 
though  we  only  met  occasionally;  he  always  wrote  to  me 
when  anything  special  in  regard  to  me  had  occurred;  and 
on  my  quitting  the  service,  in  1872,  I  thought  it  right  to 
acquaint  him  with  the  fact,  and  at  the  same  time  to  thank 
him  for  his  early  kindness.  His  reply  was  in  the  most 
genial  spirit.  "  I  assure  you,"  he  wrote,  "  I  feel  very 
sensibly  your  kind  recollection.  It  must  enhance  the 
pleasure  I  have  often  felt  and  feel  in  observing  your  dis- 
tinguished and  well-deserved  success  in  literature,  gained 
while  you  did  not  fail  to  earn  official  credit  likewise. 
That  I  have  been  at  any  time  able  to  serve  you,  and  to 
gratify  your  excellent  and  admirable  mother,  will  always 
be  to  me  a  ha2)py  reminiscence." 

After  the  retirement  of  Lord  Clanricarde,  the  holders 
of  the  Postmaster  -  generalship,  in  my  time,  were  Lords 
Colchester,  Elgin,  and  Canning  ;  the  Duke  of  Argyll  ; 
Lords  Hardwicke  and  Stanley  of  Alderley;  the  Duke  of 
Montrose  ;  and  the  Marquis  of  Hartington.  Save  in  some 
special  instances,  the  general  body  of  the  clerks  knew  lit- 
tle about  their  Great  Panjandrum.  On  his  accession  to 
office  he  used  to  be  "  brought  round  ;"  that  is  to  say. 
Colonel  Maberly  would  open  the  door  of  each  room  and 
say,  "  Gentlemen,  the  Postmaster-general !"  then,  turn- 
ing to  his  lordship,  "This  is  the  such-and-such  branch;" 
and  we  would  rise  and  bow,  and  our  new  master  would 
return  the  salutation  and  dej^art. 

This  was  the  usual  style  of  performance;  but  I  remem- 
ber two  exceptional  cases,  in  both  of  which  the  late  Lord 


68  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

HarcTwicke  was  concerned.  He  was  a  blunt,  eccentric, 
mannerless  person,  with  an  overweening  sense  of  the  im- 
portance of  his  position;  he  had  previously  served  in  the 
navy,  which  fact,  coupled  with  the  peculiarity  of  his  ways, 
caused  him  to  be  known  among  us  as  "  the  Bo'sun."  His 
first  genial  inquiry  on  his  appointment,  when  the  "  list  of 
officers  of  the  department"  was  submitted  to  him,  was, 
"  Now,  can  I  dismiss  all  these  men  ?"  And  his  general 
idea  was  that  late  attendance,  or  any  other  shortcoming 
on  the  part  of  the  clerks,  should  be  punished  by  keel-haul- 
ing or  the  "  cat."  On  the  occasion  of  his  being  "brought 
round,"  it  happened  that  a  couple  of  dozen  of  Guinness's 
bottled  stout — a  pleasant  beverage,  which  at  that  time  I 
was  sufficiently  young  and  strong  to  take  with  my  lunch- 
eon— had  arrived  for  my  consumption,  and  had  been  tem- 
porarily stowed  away  in  a  corner  of  the  room.  As  the 
Bo'sun  was  about  retiring,  the  bottles  caught  his  eye. 
"PIullo !"  he  roared,  in  a  Jack  Bunsby-like  voice,  "  whose 
are  those?"  I  meekly  acknowledged  the  proprietorship. 
I  do  not  know  what  inmishment  Lord  Hardwicke  would 
have  decreed  me  for  the  inexpiable  offence  of  drinking 
beer,  for  Colonel  JNlaberly  hurried  him  away.  In  the  next 
room  they  were  not  so  fortunate.  There  one  of  the  men 
was  so  absorbed  in  his  Times  that  he  had  not  heard  the 
entrance  of  the  Secretary  and  the  new  chief,  but,  with  his 
back  to  the  door,  sat  immersed  in  his  reading.  The  wily 
Bo'sun  marked  this  at  once,  and  stealing  up  behind  the 
preoccui)icd  man,  gave  him  a  dig  in  the  ribs,  exclainiiug, 
"  Hullo,  you  sir,  if  you  can  find  time  to  read  the  news- 
paper, we  can  spare  a  clerk  !" 

With  only  one  other  of  the  Postmasters-general — Lord 
Stanley  of  Alderley — was  I  ever  brought  into  contact, 
though  towards  the  close  of  my  official  career  I  was  treated 
with  kindness  and  consideration  l)y  Lord  llartington,  at  a 
time  wlien  I  re(juire(l  lioth,  I  had  not,  nor  have  I,  any 
l)er8onal  acquaintance  with  Lord  Hartington,  but  I  desire 
to  place  on  record  my  apj)rcciation  of  his  friendliness. 
Lord  Hartington  has,  I  believe,  a  character  for  liauteur 
atid  want  of  symjiatliy;  but  liis  interest  in  the  service  and 
liis  imj)artiality  won  him  great  res])ect  in  the  Post-oilice; 


EARLY  DAYS   IX   THE   POST-OFFICE.  09 

whereas  his  predecessor,  Lord  Stanley  of  Alderley,  known 
as  a  boii-vivant  and  a  joker,  "  old  Ben  Stanley  "  among 
his  friends,  Avas  heartily  detested  by  most  of  the  officials 
whose  ill-luck  it  was  to  have  to  see  him.  That  he  was 
cross-grained  and  tyrannical,  stingy  to  the  letter-carriers 
and  messengers,  a  ruthless  jobber  where  his  own  interests 
were  concerned,  I  knew  from  his  treatment  of  official  mat- 
ters; that  he  was  insolent  and  overbearing  to  his  subordi- 
nates I  had  heard,  but  little  thought  I  should  ever  have 
any  personal  experience  of  the  fact. 

One  day,  however,  I  was  sent  for  by  Sir  Rowland  Hill. 
I  was  at  that  time  the  head  of  the  Missing  Letter  branch, 
and  as  such  it  had  devolved  on  me  to  carry  out  a  pet 
scheme  of  Sir  Roland's — the  reduction  of  the  fee  for  reg- 
istering letters  from  sixpence  to  fourpence,  by  which  it 
was  hoped  that,  as  the  opportunities  for  obtaining  almost 
certain  security  were  made  cheaper,  the  chance  enclosure 
of  coins  and  valuables  would  be  proportionately  dimin- 
ished. The  measure  had  taken  many  months'  close  atten- 
tion to  elaborate,  but  at  last  it  had  been  worked  out  in 
every  detail,  had  received  the  sanction  of  the  Treasury, 
and  only  required  the  Postmaster-general's  signature  to  a 
certain  deed  to  become  law.  This  deed  had  been  pre- 
pared and  forwarded  to  Lord  Stanley,  and  we  were  await- 
ing its  return.  Obeying  his  summons,  I  found  my  chief 
rather  anxious. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  rather  a  disagreeable  job  for  you, 
Yates  !"  was  his  salutation. 

"Indeed,  sir?" 

"  Ye — es.  In  connection  with  the  registration-fee.  The 
papers  arc  with  the  Postmaster  -  general,  are  they  not  ? 
I've  just  been  told  by  the  solicitor,  Mr.  Ashurst,  that  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  his  lordship's  signature  should  be  at- 
tached to  the  warrant  before  twelve  o'clock  to-night,  or 
the  whole  thing  will  lapse  as  informal,  and  all  our  trouble 
will  be  lost.  It  will  be  necessary,  therefore,  that  some  one 
should  see  his  lordship  at  once,  explain  the  matter  to  him, 
and  get  his  signature.  Now  you  are  the  only  person  in 
the  Office  who  understands  all  about  the  question,  and 
therefore  you  must  go." 


70  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

"  Very  well,  sir.  Can  you  tell  me  where  I  am  likely  to 
find  Lord  Stanley  ?" 

"Yes;  that's  just  the  point.  I  understand  that  Lord 
Stanley  is  at  Newmarket  Races,  with — with  rather  a  fast 
party  of  friends.     You'll  have  to  go  to  him  there." 

This  was  horrible.  To  have  to  drag  an  irritable  elderly 
nobleman  away  from  his  fun — bother  him  about  business  ! 

"Dear  me,  sir,"  I  said,  "that  is  a  disagreeable  job,  in- 
deed !" 

"Yes,"  he  said;  adding  instantly,  in  his  peculiar  hard 
manner,  "but  you'll  have  to  do  it.  I  don't  exactly  re- 
member the  name  of  the  house  or  hotel  where  Lord  Stan- 
ley is  staying,  but  you'll  get  that  from  his  confidential 
butler  in  Dover  Street.  So  be  off  as  quickly  as  you  can, 
and  be  sure  to  get  the  signature  before  midnight.  Here 
is  a  letter  of  introduction  for  you  to  present  to  Lord  Stan- 
ley, in  which  I  have  told  him  who  you  are.     Good-day  !" 

Sir  Rowland  nodded  me  my  dismissal,  and,  though  I 
detested  the  mission,  there  was  nothing  for  me  to  do  but 
to  go.  I  drove  off  in  a  cab  to  Dover  Street,  was  admitted 
by  a  footman,  saw  the  confidential  butler,  and  learned 
from  him  that  Lord  Stanley  had  just  arrived  from  New- 
market, and  was  at  that  moment  actually  in  the  library, 
I  gave  the  man  Sir  Rowland's  letter  of  introduction,  and 
in  a  few  moments  was  bidden  to  follow  him. 

I  can  see  that  room  and  the  scene  which  occurred  per- 
fectly, plainly,  at  the  present  moment.  Standing  on  the 
hearth-rug,  with  his  back  to  tlie  fireplace,  and  facing  me 
as  I  entered,  was  a  thick-set  elderly  man  of  middle  height. 
On  the  table  close  by  him  was  a  yellow,  paper  -  covered 
French  novel  which  he  had  evidently  just  thrown  down, 
and  on  a  furtlier  table  were  three  or  four  of  the  heavy 
leather  pouches  in  wliich  oilicial  documents  were  forward- 
ed to  the  Postmaster-general. 

As  the  butler  closed  tlie  door  behind  me  I  made  the 
gentleman  a  bow,  of  which  he  took  not  the  smallest  no- 
tice.    He  did  not  offer  me  a  seat,  so  I  remained  standing, 

2>l(l7lfG-l<l. 

"  What  do  you  want?"  was  his  gracious  query. 

"  I  have  coiiie  about  the  reduction  of  the  resristration- 


EARLY  DAYS  IN   THE   rOST-OFFICE.  71 

fee,  my  lord.  I  thought  Sir  Rowland  Hill  had  explained 
in  his  letter.  It  is  necessary  that  your  lordship's  signa- 
ture—" 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  all  about  that,"  he  interrupted.     "I 

have  signed  the  d d  thing  !"  going  to  one  of  the  official 

pouches,  and  rummaging  in  it.  "It's  here  somewhere — 
no,  that's  not  it.  I  can't  find  it ;  hut  I  know  I've  signed 
it.     Look  here,  have  you  got  a  cab  outside  ?" 

"  Yes,  my  lord." 

"Then,"  pointing  to  them,  "just  take  these  pouches 
back  to  the  Office ;  you'll  find  it  when  you  get  there." 

It  was  just  too  much.  I  am  of  a  hot  temjDcr,  and  I 
boiled  over. 

"  What !"  I  cried,  in  a  tone  that  made  my  friend  jump 
again.  "  What !  do  you  expect  me  to  carry  those  bags  to 
the  cab  ?  If  you  want  that  done,  ring  the  bell  and  tell 
your  servant  to  do  it.  I'm  not  your  servant,  and  I  won't 
carry  bags  for  you  or  any  man  in  London  !" 

He  looked  petrified;  but  he  rang  the  bell. 

"What's  your  name,  sir?"  he  asked. 

"  My  name  is  Yates,  my  lord,"  I  replied. 

"  I  don't  like  your  manner,  sir,"  said  he. 

"  And  I  don't  like  yours,  my  lord,"  I  rattled  out.  "  I 
came  here  properly  introduced  by  the  Secretary;  I  made 
you  a  salutation,  which  you  had  not  the  politeness  to  re- 
turn; you  have  never  asked  me  to  take  a  seat — " 

"  Wasn't  I  standing  myself  ?"  he  interpolated. 

"  That  is  no  affair  of  mine.  Your  business  as  a  gentle- 
man was  to  ask  me  to  be  seated.  And  now  you  think  I 
am  going  to  do  your  servant's  work  !" 

Here  the  servant  entered  the  room,  and  was  ordered  by 
his  master  to  carry  off  the  bags.  I  was  preparing  to  fol- 
low him,  when  Lord  Stanley  said, 

"  You  shall  hear  more  of  this,  sir  !" 

"  Whenever  you  please,  my  lord;  I  shall  be  quite  ready;" 
and  off  I  went. 

I  was  desperately  upset,  and  I  suppose  I  showed  it;  for 
Avhen  I  arrived  at  the  Office  I  made  straight  for  Sir  Row- 
land's room.  His  face,  on  seeing  me,  expressed  more 
astonishment  and  concern  than  I  had  ever  seen  there. 


72  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

"What,  back  so  soon!"  he  said.  "Why,  what's  the 
matter  with  yon,  my  good  fellow?  You're  trembling, 
and — tell  me,  what  has  happened  ?" 

I  told  him  shortly.  The  old  gentleman  was  greatly  ex- 
cited and  very  sympathetic.  He  rose  from  his  seat,  and 
laid  his  hand  on  my  shoulder. 

"I'm  very  sorry  you've  been  exposed  to  this,  Yates," 
he  said;  "  but  you  mustn't  mind.  He's  a  d d  rude  fel- 
low ;  he's  been  very  rude  to  me  before  now.  Don't  you 
be  afraid  of  his  threats — I'll  take  care  of  that ;  and  he  will 
think  better  of  what  he  said  when  he's  a  little  cooler. 
Depend  upon  it,  you'll  hear  no  more  of  it." 

I  did  not  hear  any  more  of  it  in  the  way  I  anticipated. 
But  the  story  got  wind,  and  another  one  was  speedily 
improvised  to  the  effect  that  Lord  Stanley  had  been  so 
frightened  by  my  display  of  independence  that  the  next 
time  one  of  the  messengers  was  sent  to  him  with  some 
official  papers,  he  rushed  at  the  astonished  man,  seized  him 
warmly  by  the  hand,  and  insisted  on  his  stopping  to 
luncheon. 

To  my  being  able  to  converse  in  French  and  German  I 
owed,  during  my  life  in  the  Post-office,  several  delightful 
special  trips — one  to  Hamburg,  to  ascertain  how  quickly 
the  mails  could  be  conveyed  thither  by  a  certain  route ; 
one  to  Brindisi,  when,  in  consequence  of  the  outbreak  of 
the  Franco-German  War,  and  the  consequent  danger  of 
continuing  our  Indian  mail-service  from  Marseilles,  I  had 
the  honor  of  pioneering  the  route  over  the  Brenner,  and 
thence  to  Brindisi,  which  was  followed  until  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel.  My  first  special  journey, 
however  —  first  and  most  important  —  was  merely  due  to 
my  position  in  the  Secretary's  office.  It  was  in  the  year 
1858,  and  the  terrible  Indian  Mutiny  was  at  its  height. 
Submarine  telegraphy  was  in  its  infancy  then,  and  the 
number  of  letters  passing  between  this  country  and  India 
was  80  enormously  increased  tliat  supplementary  mails 
were  continually  being  desj»atclu'd.  The  ordinary  Indian 
mail,  made  uj)  in  air-tight  cases,  was  always  sent  in  charge 
of  special  officers  ajipointed  for  the  purpose,  and  discharg- 


EARLY  DAT?  IX  TKE  POST-OITICE.  73 

ing  no  other  duty  than  that  of  travelling,  -with  the  mails 
in  their  custody,  from  London  to  Marseille*,  and  from 
Marseilles,  on  board  one  of  the  steamers  of  the  P.  and  O. 
Company,  to  Alexandria,  where  the  charge  was  transferred 
to  the  officers  of  the  Indian  Post-office,  who  had  travelled 
so  far,  bringing  the  homeward  letters.  Xo  mails  were 
despatched  without  an  officer  in  charge  ;  so  during  the 
Mutiny  the  supplementary  mails  were  sent  in  care  of 
some  of  us  junior  clerks  of  the  Secretary's  office,  who  were 
delighted  to  get  the  chance  of  the  change. 

As  soon  as  I  heard  when  my  turn  was  likely  to  come, 
I  wrote  to  Anthony  TroUope — who  had  been  sent  out  to 
Egypt  on  a  special  mission  from  the  General  Post-office 
— ^telling  him  I  was  coming,  and  asking  him  to  look  out 
for  me.  I  started  from  the  London  Bridge  Station  of  the 
South-eastern  Railway  (there  was  no  Charing  Cross  Sta- 
tion in  those  days)  one  wild  night  in  the  beginning  of 
March,  185S,  with  seventy-six  boxes  or  cases  of  letters  in 
my  care.  These  boxes  were  counted  at  Dover,  counted 
on  board  the  boat,  counted  again  on  landing  at  Calais — I 
in  a  mortal  fright  on  each  occasion — and  counted  at  the 
gare  of  Calais,  where  they  were  deposited  in  a  h.Vi2.Q  four- 
gon,  one  end  of  which  was  fitted  up  like  a  little  room, 
with  shelves,  a  lamp,  and  two  huge  faiiteuils — one  for  me, 
M.  le  Courrier  Anglais  (for  such  designation  I  at  once  re- 
ceived), and  the  other  for  my  confrtr€y  M.  le  Courrier 
Frangais,  by  whom  I  was  joined;  such  a  pleasant  fellow,  I 
remember,  and  such  a  racontevr !  As  we  started  he  put 
himself  bodily — legs,  feet,  and  all — into  an  enormous  bag 
lined  with  sheepskin,  which  he  looped  round  his  neck,  lit 
a  pipe,  flung  himself  on  the/awfe?///,  and  began  to  talk. 

I  can  still  smell  the  saucisson  de  Lyon  and  ihe  fromage 
de  Brie,  still  taste  the  sound  red  wine,  which  his  wife 
brought  him  at  the  Gare  du  2iord  in  Paris,  just  before 
we  rattled  over  the  stones  with  our  boxes  to  the  Marseilles 
railway,  and  which  he  generously  shared  with  me;  there- 
by, I  verily  believe,  saving  my  life,  as  I  was  famished, 
and  we  had  not  an  instant  allowed  us  to  get  out  and  pro- 
cure food.  The  weather  was  bitterly  cold  throughout 
the  joumev;  and  when  we  arrived  at  Marseilles  the  peo- 

-i 


74  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

pie  were  thronging  the  streets,  looking  at  the  thickly-fall- 
ing snow,  a  sight  which  had  not  been  seen  for  years.  I 
bade  adieu  to  my  travelling  companion,  and  got  my  boxes 
safely  on  board  the  P.  and  O.  steamer  Euxine,  commanded 
by  one  of  the  best  and  noblest  fellows  that  ever  breathed, 
Captain  Thomas  Black,  with  whom  I  then  and  there  com- 
menced an  intimate  friendship,  which  lasted  for  twenty 
years,  and  was  only  terminated  by  his  death  in  18V9. 

That  delightful  trip  will  always  remain  vividly  im- 
pressed on  my  memory,  for  in  it  not  merely  did  I  see  scenes 
and  places  which  I  had  longed  to  visit,  but  I  enjoyed,  for 
the  first  time  for  several  years,  a  sense  of  perfect  rest  and 
repose,  a  freedom  from  the  receipt  of  letters  and  calls 
upon  ray  time.  I  can  perfectly  call  to  mind  at  the  present 
moment  the  keen  sense  of  enjoyment  in  lying  outstretched 
on  the  deck  in  the  lovely  weather,  my  first  realization  of 
Tennyson's  "  blue  unclouded,"  with  the  knowledge  that 
there  was  no  need  to  hurry  to  the  Oflice,  no  accursed  "  at- 
tendance-book "  to  sign,  no  theatre  to  visit,  no  subsequent 
criticism  to  write.  We  had  twelve  hours  for  coaling  at 
Malta,  which  I  spent  with  a  former  colleague,  the  Post- 
master-general of  the  island,  through  Avhom  I  had  the 
honor  of  an  introduction  to  Admiral  Lord  Lyons,  father 
of  the  present  diplomatist,  who  was  then  in  command  of 
the  Mediterranean  Squadron,  and  whose  personal  appear- 
ance struck  me  as  so  remarkably  resemliling  the  pictures 
of  Nelson,  whom  he  so  worthily  emulated  ;  and,  after  a 
further  delightful  voyage  of  three  days,  arrived  at  Alexan- 
dria, where  I  made  over  my  troublesome  charge  of  mail- 
boxes to  the  agent,  and  found  I  had  two  or  three  days  at 
my  disposal  before  the  homeward  mails  were  likely  to 
arrive. 

I  liad  expected  to  find  Anthony  Trollope  here,  but  the 
following  characteristic  letter  was  handed  to  me  : 

"Alexandria,  lUb  Marcb,  1868. 
"  My  dkar  Yates, — It  is  a  matter  of  great  regret  to  iiic  tliat  I  sliould 
miss  you.  Hut  were  I  to  stay  now  I  should  lose  my  only  opportunity  of 
going  to  Jerusalem.  I  had  hopeil  to  have  got  there  and  back  before  jou 
came  out,  and  it  has  been  impossible  for  me  to  start  till  to-day.  I  shall 
probably  still  sec  you  on  22d.     At  Cairo  sec  (above  all)  the  newly-opcncd 


EAKLY  DAYS  IN   TUE  POST-OFFICE.  75 

catacombs  of  Sakhara — by  taking  a  horse  and  mounted  guide  you  may  see 
that  and  the  Pyramids  of  Ghizeh  in  one  day.  Hear  the  howling  dervishes 
of  Cairo  at  one  on  Friday.  Tliey  liowl  but  once  a  week.  Go  to  the  cita- 
del of  Cairo,  and  mosque  of  Sultan  Hassan.  See,  also,  the  tombs  of  the 
Caliphs.  Heliopolis  is  a  humbug,  so  also  is  the  petrified  forest.  At  Alex- 
andria see  the  new  Greek  church  they  have  just  excavated.  Go  to  the 
Oriental  Hotel  at  Alexandria,  and  Shepherd's  at  Cairo. 

"  Yours  ever,  Anthony  Trollope." 

The  mail-agent  warned  me  that  my  time  in  the  East 
was  likely  to  be  very  short;  so,  on  his  advice,  after  a  cur- 
sory glance  at  Alexandria,  I  hurried  off  by  rail  to  Cairo. 
The  journey,  which,  I  see,  is  now  performed  in  five  or  six 
hours,  then  took  the  whole  day;  and  we  were  even  an  ex- 
tra time  in  getting  through  it,  as  in  those  days,  there  being 
only  one  line  of  rails,  our  train  was  shunted  at  Tantah  to 
enable  a  train  containing  the  Pasha's  troops  to  pass  by. 

But  the  time  there  employed  was  not  wasted ;  for  a  fair 
was  going  on  at  Tantah,  in  which  I  found  a  strange  ej)ito- 
me  of  Egyptian  life,  even  to  the  incident  of  the  Bedouin 
bringing  in  his  horse  for  sale,  as  related  in  Mrs.  Norton's 
charming  verse.  The  Bedouin  in  this  instance,  however, 
seemed  to  be  a  remarkably  'cute  customer,  not  unversed 
in  the  mysteries  of  "  coping  "  and  "  chaunting,"  and  with 
altogether  more  of  the  London  mews  than  of  the  Libyan 
desert  about  him.  There  was  a  Punch,  too,  and  a  buffoon 
who  danced,  and  another  who  told  stories,  and  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  rapt  and  eager  audience,  quite  a  reminis- 
cence of  the  "Arabian  Nights."  At  Tantah,  too,  I  saw  a 
band  of  convicts,  horrible-looking  ruffians,  many  of  them 
grievously  afflicted  with  ophthalmia,  handcuffed  and  leg- 
ironed,  and  linked  together  by  a  long  chain  passing  over 
their  shoulders.  They  growled  and  cursed  freely  as  they 
passed  us,  but  the  guards  in  charge  prodded  them  pleas- 
antly with  their  muskets,  and  drove  them  on.  There, 
too,  did  we  find  drawn  up  on  the  siding  three  large  green 
saloon-carriages,  in  which  were,  we  were  told,  some  mem- 
bers of  the  Pasha's  harem.  Up  and  down  in  front  of 
these  vehicles  paced  some  very  hideous  black  slaves — 
"Arabian  Nights"  again  ! — who  scoAvled  on  any  one  dar- 
ing to  approach,  and  motioned  the  would-be  intruders 


76  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

away.  But  a  fellow-passenger  and  I  stole  to  the  back  of 
tlie  carriages,  while  the  Pasha's  troop-train  was  passing  in 
front,  and  the  guardians'  attention  was  thus  engaged,  and 
were  rewarded  for  our  temerity  by  a  momentary  glimpse 
of  a  pair  of  lustrous  eyes  and  a  white  yashmak. 

It  was  night  when  we  reached  Cairo;  the  station  was  a 
long  way  from  the  town,  and  I  made  a  triumphal  entry 
on  a  donkey,  followed  by  its  driver,  and  preceded  by  a 
boy  with  a  torch,  both  boys  yelling  at  the  top  of  their 
voices.  I  was  deposited  at  the  door  of  Shepherd's  Hotel, 
where  my  arrival  was  sufficiently  ignominious ;  for  the 
sudden  cessation  of  the  donkey's  gallop  sent  me  flying 
over  his  head,  to  the  great  delight  of  several  of  John 
Company's  officers,  military  and  civil,  who  were  congre- 
gated in  the  veranda.  Shephei'd's  was  full — I  am  told  it 
always  is,  even  in  its  present  enlarged  and  improved  form 
— it  was  crammed  that  night,  and  I  was  about  to  be  turned 
away.  But  on  my  making  an  emphatic  representation  to 
Mr.  Shepherd,  and  mentioning  the  name  of  Albert  Smith, 
who  had  done  the  hotel  good  service  in  his  "Month  at 
Constantinople,"  I  was  told  I  might,  if  I  chose,  take  posses- 
sion of  a  large  sofa,  which  stood  in  a  corner  of  the  coffee- 
room.  I  was  too  thankful  even  for  this  accommodation  ; 
and  after  a  meal  I  laid  myself  down  without  undressing. 
The  room  was  quite  dark,  and  I  had  not  been  long  asleep 
when  a  man,  whom  I  made  out  to  be  a  French  waiter,  and 
who  was  rather  drunk,  plumped  himself  down  by  my  side. 
Ilira  I  kicked  into  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  heard  no 
more  of;  but  I  was  again  a\vakened  later  by  a  fresh  visit- 
or, in  the  shape  of  a  huge  dog,  who  had  evidently  been 
accustomed  to  pass  the  night  there,  and  willi  whom  I 
shared  my  couch. 

When  I  woke  I  found  the  liomeward-bound  mails  had 
been  telegra])]ied  as  having  left  Suez,  so  that  my  visit  to 
Cairo  was  considerably  abbreviated.  Of  tlie  Pyramids  I 
may  say,  vidl  td/itiou  :  I  actually  saw  tlu-m  in  the  distance 
from  the  top  of  the  citadel,  ami  that  was  all,  I  rejoined 
the  old  Euxine  at  Alexandria,  made  my  return  journey 
across  France  much  as  I  had  come,  and  was  home  in  Lon- 
don  within   three   weeks  of  having  quitted   it,  wliich  in 


EAKLY  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  77 

those  days  was  considered  good  travelling.  A  couple  of 
articles  descriptive  of  my  journey,  under  the  title  "In 
Charge,"  appeared  in  one  of  the  early  numbers  of  All 
the  Year  Hound. 

My  other  official  trips  had  no  incidents  particularly 
worthy  of  record,  though  in  connection  with  my  run  to 
Hamburg  and  back  occurred  one  of  those  amenities  of 
official  life  which  it  is  as  well  to  preserve.  The  journey, 
which  was  undertaken  at  the  express  desire  of  Mr.  Fred- 
erick Hill,  the  assistant  secretary,  was  made  in  the  month 
of  January,  in  exceptionally  severe  and  trying  Aveather, 
the  Elbe  being  frozen  over,  my  instructions  being  to 
prove  in  how  little  time  the  out-and-home  journey  could 
be  accomplished.  I  took  but  a  very  few  hours'  rest  be- 
fore starting  on  my  return.  The  consequence  was  that  on 
my  arrival  at  home  I  was  completely  knocked  uj).  I  had 
signs  of  erysipelas  on  my  forehead,  desperate  pains  and 
numbness  in  my  head,  and  a  thorough  all-overish  sense 
of  illness.  I  got  to  bed  at  once,  and  sent  for  my  old  friend 
Mr.  Skey  of  Bartholomew's,  who  pronounced  me  suffer- 
ing under  a  complete  chill,  with  serious  complications  in 
the  future  unless  I  succumbed  at  once. 

I  was  anxious  to  make  my  report,  and  to  give  personal 
explanation  of  the  results  of  my  journey;  but  the  doctor 
insisted  on  my  remaining  in  bed,  and  wrote  a  certificate 
of  my  state,  which  I  forwarded  to  the  Office,  asking  for 
indulgence  for  two  or  three  days.  I  do  not  know  Avhetlier 
the  certificate  was  couched  in  professional,  and  conse- 
quently apparently  pompous,  terms,  which  grated  upon 
the  simple  susceptibilities  of  the  secretary,  Mr.  Tilley; 
whether  he  was  annoyed  at  my  having  been  employed  by 
one  of  the  Hills,  with  whom  he  was  always  at  variance; 
or  whether  it  was  the  natural  benevolence  and  geniality 
of  the  man  which  caused  him  to  send  me  the  following 
reply  to  my  application  : 


"Sir, — In  reply  to  your  letter  of  yesterday's  date,  I  have  to  inform  you 
that,  as  it  appears  you  have  a  headache,  leave  of  absence  for  two  days  lias 
been  granted  you.  Your  obedient  servant, 

"John  Tilley." 


76  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

This  was  my  return  for  having  faithfully  performed  a 
service  "which  did  not  lie  within  my  ordinary  duty,  and  in 
the  discharge  of  which  I  had  been  nearly  frozen  to  death 
and  narrowly  escaped  rheumatic  fever ! 

But  no  cynical  insults  from  a  Tilley,  or  any  other  grim 
humorist,  rankled  long  in  those  days  of  youth  and  gener- 
ally good  condition,  and,  despite  Rowland  Hill's  warning, 
wonderful  animal  spirits.  The  luncheon-time  alone  was 
fruitful  of  delights.  When  I  first  joined  the  service  the 
luncheons  were  procured  from  neighboring  taverns;  but 
Colonel  Maberly's  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  was  an- 
noyed by  encountering  strange  persons  wandering  through 
the  lobbies,  balancing  tin -covered  dishes  and  bearing 
foaming  pewter-pots.  Rumors  were  current  of  his  hav- 
ing been  seen  waving  his  arms  and  "  hishing  "  back  a  stal- 
wart potman,  who,  not  knowing  his  adversary,  declined 
to  budge.  Anyhow,  these  gentry  were  refused  further 
admission,  and  a  quarter  of  an  hour — a  marvellously  elas- 
tic quarter  of  an  hour — was  allowed  us  in  which  to  go 
and  procure  luncheon  at  a  neighboring  restaurant. 

There  were  plenty  of  these  to  choose  from.  For  the 
aristocratic  and  tlie  well-to-do  there  was  Dolly's  Chop- 
house,  up  a  little  court  out  of  Newgate  Street :  a  wonder- 
ful old  room,  heavy-panelled,  dark,  dingy,  with  a  female 
portrait  which  we  always  understood  to  be  "  Dolly  "  on 
the  walls  ;  with  a  head-waiter  in  a  limp  white  neck-cloth, 
with  a  pale  face  and  sleek  black  hair,  who  on  Sundays 
was  a  verger  at  St.  Paul's;  but  with  good  joints  and 
steaks  and  chops  and  soups  served  in  a  heavy,  old-fash- 
ioned manner,  at  a  stiff,  old-fashioned  price. 

Almost  equally  grand,  but  conforming  more  to  modern 
notions,  was  the  Cathedral  Hotel  at  the  corner  of  St. 
Paul's  Church-yaril,  Avherc  there  was  a  wonderful  waiter 
with  a  graduated  scale  of  gratitude,  on  which  we  were  al- 
ways experimenting  and  imitating.  Thus,  for  the  dona- 
tion of  a  penny,  he,  hxtking  uncomfortable,  would  mut- 
ter, "Thenk,  sir;"  for  twojience  he  would  audibly  remark, 
"  Thank  you,  sir ;"  for  threepence  he  would  make  a  grand 
bow,  and  say,  '*  Thank  you,  sir ;  Pm  'blaiged  to  you."  He 
never  varied  his  programme,  though  we  often  tried  him. 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  79 

Only  last  year  I  saw  him,  very  little  changed,  walking  on 
the  esplanade  at  Worthing,  and  looking  at  the  sea  as 
though  he  regarded  it  rather  as  a  penny  customer.  At 
the  Cathedral,  too,  was  an  old  gentleman,  a  regular  Aa- 
bitue,  who,  as  I  am  afraid  he  was,  a  Radical,  delighted  in 
the  perpetration  of  one  mild  joke.  He  would  secure  the 
Morning  Herald,  the  Tory  organ  of  those  days,  and  when 
he  had  perused  it  would  hand  the  paper  to  his  opposite 
neighbor  with  a  bow,  and  the  observation,  "  Would  you 
like  to  read  any  lies,  sir  ?" 

We  impecunious  juniors,  however,  ventured  seldom  into 
these  expensive  establishments.  For  us  there  were  cheap- 
er refectories,  two  of  which  achieved  great  celebrity  in 
their  day:  Balls's  Alamode  Beef  House  in  Butcher  Hall 
Lane — I  believe  Butcher  Hall  Lane  has  disappeared  in 
the  City  improvements,  but  it  used  to  run  at  right  angles 
with  Newgate  Street,  near  the  eastern  end  of  Christ's 
Hospital  —  where  was  to  be  obtained  a  most  delicious 
"  portion  "  of  stewed  beef  done  up  in  a  sticky,  coagulated, 
glutinous  gravy  of  surpassing  richness  ;  and  Williams's 
Boiled  Beef  House  in  the  Old  Bailey,  which  was  well 
known  throughout  London,  and  where  I  have  often  seen 
the  great  Old  Bailey  advocates  of  those  days,  Messrs. 
Clarkson  and  Bodkin,  discussing  their  "fourpenny  jjlates." 
Williams's  was  a  place  to  be  "  done  "  by  any  one  coming 
up  for  the  London  sights ;  and  there  were  always  plenty 
of  country  squires  and  farmers,  and  occasionally  foreign- 
ers, to  be  found  there,  though  the  latter  did  not  seem  to 
be  much  impressed  with  the  excellence  of  the  cuisine. 

In  those  days,  too,  we  used  to  lunch  at  places  which 
seem  entirely  to  have  disappeared.  The  "Ci'owley's 
Alton  Ale-house  "  is  not  so  frequently  met  with  as  it  was 
thirty  years  ago.  The  "  ale-houses  "  were,  in  fact,  small 
shops  fitted  with  a  beer-engine  and  a  counter;  they  had 
been  established  by  Mr.  Crowley,  a  brewer  of  Alton,  on 
finding  the  difiiculty  of  procuring  ordinary  public-houses 
for  the  sale  of  his  beer;  and  at  them  was  sold  nothing 
but  beer,  ham  sandwiches,  bread-and-cheese,  but  all  of  the 
very  best.  They  were  enormously  popular  with  young 
men  who  did  not  particularly  care  about  hanging  round 


80  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

the  bars  of  taverns,  and  did  an  enormous  trade ;  but  that 
was  in  the  prae-Spiers  &  Pond  days ;  and,  I  am  bound  to 
say,  all  the  facilities  for  obtaining  refreshments,  and  gen- 
erally sj^eaking  the  refreshments  themselves,  have  enor- 
mously improved  since  then.  There  was  also  another 
luncheon-house  which  we  used  to  frequent  on  Addle  Hill 
— not  a  bad  name  for  the  Doctors'  Commons  of  those 
days,  in  which  it  was  situate  —  and  on  our  way  whence 
we  would  look  in  at  "the  Commons,"  where  the  bench, 
bar,  and  general  arrangement  were  supplied  at  that  time 
by  a  family  of  the  name  of  Fust — ^look  in  with  additional 
interest,  aroused  by  the  associations  of  the  place  with 
"  David  Copperfield,"  then  in  course  of  publication. 

I  knew  Doctors'  Commons,  too,  as  a  short  cut  to  the 
river,  by  Paul's  Chain  to  Paul's  Wharf,  and  thence  by 
penny  steamboat  to  Ilungerford  Bridge  (long  since  pulled 
down  and  carted  off  bodily  to  Clifton  by  Bristol,  where 
it  spans  the  Avon) ;  by  halfpenny  steamboat  at  one  time, 
for  in  the  fury  of  competition,  three,  the  A7it,  Bee,  and 
Cricket,  were  started  at  that  price,  but  the  last  -  named 
blew  up  —  it  was  proved  at  the  inquest  that  the  stoker 
tied  down  the  safety-valves  with  strings  to  increase  the 
speed — at  a  time  when  it  was  loaded  with  business-men 
coming  into  the  City ;  and  the  news  being  received  at 
the  Post-office,  caused  the  eager  inquiry  from  one  of  our 
rascals,  "  Any  seniors  on  board  ?" 

It  was  a  somewhat  grim  jest,  but  we  were  like  the  mid- 
shipmen who  drank  the  toast,  "A  bloody  war  or  a  sickly 
season."  We  were  wretchedly  paid,  and  promotion  was 
desperately  slow.  When  I  first  entered  the  service  the 
Post-office  was  one  of  the  worst  paid  of  the  public  depart- 
ments and  one  of  the  lowest  in  rank.  There  seemed  to 
be  a  general  acce])tance  of  idea  that  the  duties  there  were 
entirely  conlined  to  sorling  letters  ;  and  I  have  often  been 
seriously  asked  by  my  friends  of  the  outer  world  whether 
I  had  noticed  such  and  such  a  letter  in  the  course  of  its 
transmission.  So  far  as  the  Secretary's  office  was  con- 
cerned, all  the  letter-sorting,  etc.,  might  have  been  a  hun- 
dred miles  off  for  what  we  saw  of  it;  but  the  public — for 
as  all  nations  were  Gentiles  to  the  Jews,  so,  to  an  official, 


EARLY  DAYS  IN   THE  POST-OFFICE.  81 

all  non-officials  are  "  the  public  " — the  public  never  seemed 
to  give  any  heed  to  the  huge  amount  of  ability,  patience, 
experience,  and  technical  knowledge  required  to  insure 
the  prompt  and  proper  transmission  of  their  mails ;  the 
postal  intercourse  with  foreign  countries  and  the  colonies  ; 
the  contracts  with  the  great  ocean  steam-companies ;  the 
discipline  of  the  enormous  staff,  with  its  representatives 
in  every  city,  town,  and  village  of  the  United  Kingdom  ; 
and  a  hundred  other  minor  details,  any  friction  in  the 
working  of  which  might  have  thrown  a  huge  j^ortion  of 
the  machine  out  of  geai",  and  caused  indescribable  confu- 
sion among  the  great  commercial  circles. 

All  this  work  was  done  in  the  Secretary's  office,  the 
staff  of  which  then  numbered  about  fifty  men,  all  told, 
who  were  paid  according  to  the  following  rate :  On  en- 
tering the  service  a  salary  of  £90  a  year ;  no  increase  for 
three  years,  when  the  pay  was  made  £110;  no  increase 
for  another  three  years,  when  it  was  raised  to  £140  ;  but 
this  involved  admission  into  the  body  of  "  clerks  in  wait- 
ing," who  took  it  in  turn  to  sleep  at  the  office,  and  had 
to  pay  for  the  meals  consumed  there  without  any  extra 
allowance.  In  this,  the  "assistant,"  class  the  salaries 
advanced  by  £10  a  year  until  they  reached  the  sum  of 
£260  a  year,  where  they  stopped.  So  that  unless  he  man- 
aged to  get,  through  a  death  -  vacancy,  into  the  senior 
class,  which  was  limited  in  number,  where  the  salaries 
commenced  at  £350  and  advanced  to  £500,  a  man  after 
twenty-five  years'  service  would  receive  £2G0  a  yeai',  and 
might  never  get  beyond  it.  In  those  days,  too,  a  deduc- 
tion was  made  for  "  superannuation  allowance  " — that  is 
to  say,  we  were  mulcted  in  a  contribution  to  future  pen- 
sions, which  we  might  or  might  not  receive.  Thus,  when 
I  was  supposed  to  be  getting  £90  a  year,  my  quarterly 
receipt  was  £21  18s.  9c?.  This  cruel  tax  was  afterwards 
abolished,  mainly  through  the  influence  of  Mr.  Disraeli. 

It  was  desperately  poor  pay,  and  various  efforts  had 
been  made  to  obtain  an  improved  scale,  but  without  ef- 
fect. Esprit  cle  cordis,  so  far  as  in  any  way  assisting  his 
official  inferiors,  was  wholly  lacking  in  Colonel  IMaberly's 
composition.  I  recollect  mentioning,  parenthetically,  to 
him  once  that  I  had  been  ii]i  nearly  all  the  night  in  con- 


82  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

nection  with  some  of  the  clerks-in-waiting  duties.  "  Well, 
my  good  fellow,  you're  paid  for  it !"  was  his  sympathetic 
remark.  Thus  the  colonel,  having  just  arrived  at  eleven 
o'clock,  munching  his  breakfast  in  easy  comfort  —  the 
colonel  with  his  £1500  a  year  salary,  his  half -pay,  his 
Irish  rents  and  private  fortune  —  to  me,  tired  out,  blind 
with  want  of  sleep,  and  passing  rich  on  £140  a  year ! 

Just  about  this  time — i.  e.,  soon  after  I  reached  the  "  as- 
sistant" class — the  Postmaster-general  of  Malta  died  or 
resigned,  and  the  appointment  being  in  the  gift  of  our 
Postmaster-general,  with  a  salary  of  £500  a  year,  at  that 
time,  to  me,  an  income  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,  I 
applied  for  it.  Colonel  Maberly  good-naturedly  agreed 
to  recommend  me  for  the  vacant  berth,  which  I  believe  I 
should  have  obtained,  when  news  came  that  our  last  peti- 
tion for  a  revision  of  salaries  had  been  favorably  received, 
and  that  a  Treasury  commission  would  be  appointed  to 
inquire  into  our  grievances. 

This  news  materially  altered  my  plans.  I  had  already 
doubted  the  wisdom  of  my  course  in  exchanging  the  de- 
lights of  London  life,  even  in  poverty,  for  such  an  exist- 
ence as  Malta  could  offer,  and  I  determined  to  hang  on 
and  hope  for  better  times.  I  accordingly  waited  on  the 
colonel,  and  told  him  I  wished  to  withdraw  my  appli- 
cation, "  What  for  ?"  "  Because,  sir,  I  hear  there  is  a 
chance  of  improvement  here.  Tliey  say  that  we  are  to 
have  a  Commission  of  Inquiry."  "  A  commission  !"  he 
cried,  testily.  "  My  good  fellow,  do  you  know  what  a 
commission  is  ?  A  commission  is  an  official  machine  for 
cutting  down  salaries  !"  However,  to  my  own  subse- 
quent deliglit,  I  persisted,  my  application  Avas  witlulrawn, 
and  anotlier  appointment  made  to  Malta.  The  commis- 
sion, consisting  of  h5ir  Stafford  Northcote,  Lord  Elcho 
(now  Earl  Wemyss),  and  a  Trcasuiy  official,  commenced 
tlieir  hibors,  wliich  extended  over  many  months,  with  re- 
sults Htarlliug  to  us.  We  got  a  very  mucOi  improved 
scale  of  pay  ;  what  was  called,  in  dcliglitrul  officialese, 
"the  double  Secretariat"  was  abolished  ;  Colonel  Maber- 
ly was  made  an  extra  Commissioner  of  Audit,  with  his 
existing  salary,  and  Rowlaixl  Hill  was  appointed  sole 
Secretary  to  the  Post-office 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  83 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    AMUSEMENTS  OF   YOUTH. 

1847-1852. 

At  the  time  of  my  joining  the  Post-office  service  my 
mother  was  living,  as  she  had  been  for  some  years  previ- 
ously, at  No.  12  Alpha  Road,  a  thoroughfare  which,  with 
its  extension  of  Church  Street,  connects  that  portion  of 
the  Regent's  Park  lying  between  Clarence  and  Hanover 
Gates  with  the  Edgeware  Road.  I  am  afraid  from  w^hat 
I  see  that  of  late  years  it  has  somewhat  deteriorated,  but 
in  those  days  it  was  a  very  pretty  place.  The  houses  had 
large  gardens,  and  the  respectability  of  the  locality  was 
unimpeachable,  my  kind  old  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Harrison, 
Commissioner  of  Inland  Revenue,  and  the  family  of  the 
late  Mr.  Sergeant  Bompas  being  our  immediate  neighbors. 
Our  house  was  a  cosy  and  comfortable  one,  and  had  near- 
ly an  acre  of  garden,  which  I  need  scarcely  say  has  now 
been  built  over,  but  which  then,  despite  the  London 
"  smuts,"  produced  a  fair  crop  of  flowers,  and  was  always 
green  and  pleasant  to  look  upon.  The  one  drawback,  so 
far  as  I  was  concerned,  was  the  distance  from  the  centre 
of  London  and  from  all  places  of  amusement.  There  was 
a  good  omnibus  service  to  the  Post-office,  and  the  ride  in 
the  early  morning  was  pleasant  enough ;  but  returning 
home  from  some  festivity  late  at  night,  I  constantly 
wished  Fate  had  caused  my  mother  to  pitch  her  tent  in 
some  less  remote  district.  For  I  began  to  dine  out,  to  go 
into  society,  and  generally  to  enjoy  myself,  almost  imme- 
diately after  my  return  to  the  maternal  nest,  greatly  to 
my  mother's  amazement,  and  a  little,  I  fear,  to  her  sorrow, 
though  she  was  certainly  proud  of  the  way  in  which  I 
was  "taken  up."    The  nine  or  ten  months'  absence  had 


84  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

done  wonders.  I  left  her  a  gauche  school-boy  ;  I  returned 
a  young  man,  not  encumbered  with  an  excess  of  bashful- 
ness,  with  plenty  to  say  for  myself,  and  with  a  strong  de- 
termination to  get  on  in  the  world. 

One  of  the  earliest  and  most  efficient  promoters  of  this 
desire  on  my  part  was  my  godfather,  the  Hon.  Edmund 
Byng,  of  whom  I  have  already  made  casual  mention,  then 
nearly  seventy,  a  bachelor,  living  at  No.  10  Clarges  Street, 
and  one  of  the  most  eccentric  of  human  beings.     He  was 
a  very  handsome  and  particularly  distinguished-looking 
old  gentleman,  with  fresh  complexion  and  well-cut  feat- 
ures, but  suffering  greatly  from  an  affection  of  the  eyes, 
which  compelled  the  wearing  of  colored  glasses.     Until 
very  late  in  life  he  never  wore  a  great-coat,  but  was  al- 
ways dressed  in  a  dark  blue  tail-coat,  with  plain,  flat,  gold 
buttons,  brown  trousers,  rather  tight,  brown  gaiters,  and 
shoes.     His  hat  was  always  a  very  bad  one,  and  he  was 
never  seen  in  the  street  without  a  large  gingham  um- 
brella, which  he  carried  horizontally  tucked   under  his 
arm,  and  which  was  always  coming  into  violent  contact 
with  animate  and  inanimate  objects.     His  friends  used  to 
say  that  his  defective  eyesight  never  precluded  his  recog- 
nizing the  difference  between  a  pretty  and  an  ugly  wom- 
an, and  his  great  predilection  for  beauty,  which  had  been 
a  feature  in  his  youth,  was  one  of  the  few  disagreeable 
characteristics  of  his  old  age.     He  was  very  clever,  well 
read  — his  knowledge  of  Shakspearc  was  extraordinary 
— a  confirmed  cynic,  with,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  a  great 
deal  of  practical  benevolence,  but  full  of  that  bitter  satiri- 
cal humor  which  is  so  captivating  to  youth,  and  in  which, 
wholly  unchecked  and  outspoken  as  it  was   in  my  old 
friend,  I  used  to  revel.     He  was  known  to  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,  and  delighted  in  gathering  those  most 
likely  to  be  diametrically  opposed  in  their  views  at  his 
table,  and  egging  them  on  to  argument,  which,  on  occa- 
sion, would  wax  tolerably  warm.     He  had  been  in  his 
youth  very  fond  of  the  theatre,  and  his  was  one  of  the 
very   few  houses  in  those  days  where  actors   were  in- 
vited. 

The  old  gentleman  took  a  great  fancy  to  me,  invited 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  85 

me  two  or  three  times  a  week  to  his  table,  where  he  al- 
ways placed  me  opposite  to  him — a  rather  trying  position 
for  a  lad  of  seventeen,  where  the  guests  were  nearly  all 
distinguished  men — and  was  always  pleased  if,  after  leav- 
ing my  office,  I  would  call  for  him,  and  give  him  my  arm 
for  a  tour  of  visits  or  card-leaving.  He  was  a  somewhat 
trying  companion  on  such  occasions,  for  his  outspoken- 
ness and  irritability  were  excessive.  I  recollect  taking 
him  one  day  to  the  door  of  a  very  great  house,  and 
knocking.  "  Her  Grace  at  home  ?"  asked  Mr.  Byng. 
"Her  Grace  has  gone  to  Chiswick,  sir,"  replied  the  hall 
porter.  "What  the  devil  do  you  mean,  sir,"  burst  out 
the  old  gentleman,  "by  telling  me  your  mistress's  move- 
ments !  I  don't  want  to  know  them  !  I  asked  if  she 
were  at  home,  and  all  I  wanted  was  a  plain  answer  to  that 
question."  Then,  with  a  thump  of  his  umbrella  on  the 
doorstep,  he  pulled  me  away,  and  we  left  the  man  gazing 
after  us,  petrified  with  amazement. 

The  dinners  in  Clarges  Street  were  very  plain  and  sim- 
ple, but  very  good  in  their  way.  Potatoes  of  extraordi- 
nary size  and  excellence  were  always  served  in  their  "jack- 
ets "  and  in  a  huge  wooden  bowl  ;  port  and  sherry  were 
the  only  wines  ;  and  most  of  the  decanters  had  their  necks 
filed,  the  "  lip  "  having  been  knocked  off.  The  guests 
varied,  but  among  the  most  regular  were  Lord  John  Fitz- 
roy,  a  very  high-bred -looking  old  gentleman,  a  great 
wbist-player,  and  reminding  one  altogether  of  a  Thack- 
erayan  creation  ;  the  late  Lord  Torrington  ;  John  Wood- 
ford, of  the  F.O.  ;  Dr.  Dickson,  author  of  "Fallacies  of 
the  Faculty  ;"  Mr.  Loaden,  a  smart  solicitor  in  large 
practice  ;  my  colleague,  George  Harrison  ;  another  col- 
league, Haughton  Forrest,  a  connection  of  the  host ;  the 
Hon.  and  Rev.  Fitzroy  Stanhope  ;  and  John  Cooper,  the 
actor.  The  Earl  of  Scarborough,  Lord  Gardner  ;  Horace 
Pitt,  afterwards  Lord  Rivers ;  Sir  William  de  Bathe  ;  Mr. 
Norton,  the  police  magistrate  ;  "  Billy  "  Bennett,  actor, 
and  father  of  Miss  Julia  Bennett  ;  Planche,  Cliarles 
Dance,  and  Robert  Keeley  came  occasionally. 

There,  too,  I  met  for  the  first  time  the  Hon.  "  Jim " 
Macdouald.     He  arrived,  I  remember,  after  we  were  all 


86  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

seated  at  table,  and  this,  I  suppose,  annoyed  the  old  gen- 
tleman ;  for  when  Colonel  Macdonald,  as  he  was  then,  in 
his  airy  manner,  said,  "  How  d'ye  do,  Byng  ?  sorry  I'm 
late  !"  and  proffered  his  hand,  our  host  said,  "  Sit  down, 
sir  !  I  never  shake  hot  hands  !  get  on  with  your  dinner." 
Colonel  Macdonald  smiled  and  took  his  seat ;  but  later 
on,  Mr.  Byng  asking  him  if  he  liked  the  particular  dish 
he  was  eating,  he  said  it  was  "  very  good."  *'  God  bless 
my  soul,  sir,"  cried  Byng,  "  what  do  you  mean  by  that  ? 
Of  course  it's  good,  sir ;  everything  that  comes  to  this 
table  is  good.  What  I  asked  you  was  whether  you  liked 
it!" 

Mr.  Byng  was  also  always  very  much  "  down  "  upon 
John  Cooper,  a  tragedian  of  the  old  school,  pompous,  sol- 
emn, pretentious,  and  dull.  Cooper  was  a  bit  of  a  miser, 
and  Byng  was  always  delighted  when  the  exercise  of  this 
niggardly  spirit  brought  the  actor  to  grief.  On  one  oc- 
casion, a  close  summer's  evening,  when  Cooper  was  ex- 
pected to  dinner,  a  violent  rain-storm  came  on,  and  Mr. 
Byng  confided  to  me  his  joy  that  Cooper,  who  lived  in 
St.  James's  Place  and  generally  walked  across,  would  be 
compelled  to  take  a  cab.  Presently  a  cab  stopped  at  the 
door,  and  Cooper's  sonorous  voice  was  heard  from  the  in- 
side, bidding  the  cabman  to  knock  at  the  door.  "  Not  I," 
said  the  driver,  calmly  remaining  on  his  box.  "  What 
do  you  mean  ?"  asked  Cooper ;  "  I  have  paid  you  your 
fare  already."  "Fare  !"  growled  the  man,  still  enthroned  ; 
"  you  give  me  a  shillin'  when  you  got  in  :  that  was  for 
drivin'  of  you,  not  for  knockin'  ;  get  out  and  knock  your- 
self !"  And  the  man  remaining  obdurate.  Cooper  had  to 
get  out  in  the  pouring  rain  and  knock  at  the  door,  which 
the  servant,  acting  under  his  delighted  master's  instruc- 
tions, did  not  hurry  liinisclf  to  open. 

The  most  reguhir  hdhihi'e  of  Charges  Street,  however, 
was  a  very  old  German  gentleman,  a  certain  Baron  de — 
really,  I  suppose,  von  —  Feilitzer,  a  bent,  shrunken,  wiz- 
ened old  fellow,  over  eiglity  years  of  age,  who  had,  ac- 
cording to  the  generally  received  legend,  been  a  page  to 
Frederick  the  Great,  but  wlio  was  only  known  lo  us  as 
Mr.  Byng's  principal  l)utt  and  toady.     Notwithstanding 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  87 

his  ago,  he  had  an  enormous  appetite,  which  he  nsed  to 
indulge  without  stint,  his  host  observing  him  from  time 
to  time,  and  keeping  up  a  running  commentary  on  his 
proceedings,  which  was  intended  to  be  sotto  voce,  but 
which  was  distinctly  audible  round  the  delighted  table. 
"  Look  at  him,  filling  his  baronial  stomach  !  God  bless 
my  soul,  was  there  ever  seen  anything  like  it  !  why,  he 
eats  more  at  one  meal  than  I  do  in  a  month  !  Look  at 
him  putting  it  away  !"  And  the  object  of  his  rcmai'ks, 
who  knew  jierfectly  what  was  going  on,  would  look  slyly 
up  from  his  plate,  and,  without  discontinuing  operations, 
chuckle  and  say,  "  Ja,  der  Byng  !  der  is  fonny  man  !"  and 
take  no  further  heed.  The  baron  lived  in  lodgings  over 
a  celebrated  baker's  in  Great  Russell  Street,  Covent  Gar- 
den— the  shop  is  still  there — and  from  time  to  time  Ave, 
who,  I  suppose,  must  have  been  considered  our  patron's 
henchmen,  were  expected,  after  a  heavy  dinner  in  Clarges 
Street,  to  go  off  with  Mr.  Byng  in  a  body  to  the  Baron's 
lodgings  in  Covent  Garden,  where  a  large  and  thoroughly 
British  supper  of  oysters,  lobsters,  and  cold  beef  was 
awaiting  us,  which  we  were  expected  to  eat.  In  defer- 
ence to  Mr.  Byng's  wishes  we  used  to  struggle  hard  to 
swallow  something,  but  he  always  declared  that  as  soon 
as  we  were  gone  the  old  baron  would  set  to  and  clear  the 
board. 

I  owed  a  great  deal  to  the  kindness  of  my  eccentric  old 
godfather,  at  whose  house  and  through  whom  I  made 
many  useful  acquaintances  at  that  time.  He  did  not  go 
to  Court,  owing  to  some  slight  in  connection  with  a  dis- 
pute in  which  his  intimate  friend.  Sir  John  Conroy,  Avas 
involved,  and  it  was  always  understood  that  he  had  had 
the  temerity  to  refuse  a  Royal  invitation,  which  is,  of 
course,  a  Royal  command  ;  but  he  was  remembered  by 
many  great  ladies,  and  through  one  of  them,  a  patroness 
of  Almack's,  he  obtained  for  me  a  card  for  one  of  the  last 
balls  of  that  expiring  institution  of  exclusiveness,  which 
was  then  held  in  Willis's  Rooms.  I  did  not  know  more 
than  two  people  in  the  place,  and  passed  a  miserably  dull 
evening  ;  but  I  Avas  accounted  remarkably  lucky  to  have 
obtained  such  an  entree,  and  rather  fancied  myself  accord- 


88  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ingly.  Edmund  Byng,  who  must  not  be  confounded  with 
his  brother  Frederick,  well  known  as  "Poodle"  Byng, 
with  whom  he  had  little  in  common,  died  at  an  advanced 
age  in  1854  or '55. 

I  went  occasionally  to  dinner-parties  and  frequently 
to  balls  in  my  early  days,  when  the  deux  temps  valse  had 
just  been  imported  into  England,  and  we  used  to  dance 
it  to  the  inspiriting  strains  of  Jullien's  or  Weippert's  band; 
but  I  am  afraid  my  real  amusements  were  of  a  less  sober 
and  more  Bohemian  character.  Dancing  was  just  then 
commencing  to  be  recognized  in  England  as  a  national 
pursuit.  The  public  balls  of  former  days  had  been  con- 
fined to  the  dreary  "  assemblies  "  of  provincial  towns,  and 
in  London  there  was  nothing  of  the  kind  in  winter;  while 
in  summer,  Vauxhall,  the  ancient  and  grievously  over- 
rated, and  Cremorne  Gardens,  the  creation  of  which  as  a 
place  of  amusement  out  of  the  old  finely-timbered  pleas- 
aunce  I  can  well  remember,  were  our  al  fresco  resorts. 
But  in  the  year  1846,  while  I  was  in  Germany,  I  had  in- 
formation from  friends  that  one  Emile  Laurent,  a  French- 
man, had  taken  the  old  Adelaide  Gallery,  converted  it 
into  a  paradise,  and  called  it  the  Casino. 

The  Adelaide  Gallery,  which  was  situated  at  the  north- 
ern, or  St.  Martin's  Church,  end  of  the  Lowther  Arcade 
(where  as  a  child  I  used  to  eat  buns  at  Miss  Ehrhardt 
the  confectioner's,  and  buy  toys  of  John  Binge,  who  com- 
bined toy-selling  in  the  daytime  with  theatrical  singing 
at  night,  and  who  was  called  "  The  Singing  Mouse,"  ow- 
ing to  the  smallness  of  his  sAveet  tenor  voice),  was  started 
as  a  science  "  show."  Its  principal  attractions  were  Per- 
kins's steam-gun,  which  discharged  a  shower  of  bullets, 
l)ut  was  never  adopted  in  serious  warfare ;  and  the  gym- 
notus,  or  electrical  eel,  a  creature  which  emitted  shocks 
on  its  back  being  touched.  Parents  and  persons  in  charge 
of  youth  were  great  patrons  of  the  Adelaide  Gallery, 
Avliicli  fiourislicd  until  a  rival  institution  appeared  in  the 
shape  of  tlie  Polytechnic,  in  tapper  Regent  Street,  which 
speedily  and  completely  took  the  wind  out  of  the  sails  of 
the  original  establishment. 

All  me!   the  Polytechnic,  with   its  diving-bell,  tlie  de- 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  89 

scent  in  wliicb  was  so  pleasantly  productive  of  imminent 
head  -  splitting  ;  its  diver,  who  rapped  his  helmet  play- 
fully with  the  coppers  which  had  been  thrown  at  him  ; 
its  half-globes,  brass  pillars,  and  water-troughs  so  charged 
with  electricity  as  nearly  to  dislocate  the  arms  of  those 
that  touched  them;  with  its  microscope,  wherein  the  in- 
finitesimal creatures  in  a  drop  of  Thames  water  appeared 
like  antediluvian  animals  engaged  in  combat ;  with  its 
lectures,  in  which  Professor  Bachhoffner  was  always  ex- 
hibiting chemistry  to  "  the  tyro  ;"  with  its  dissolving 
views  of  "A  Ship,"  afterwards  "on  fi-er,"  and  an  illus- 
tration of  —  as  explained  by  the  unseen  chorus  —  "The 
Hall  of  Waters — at  Constant — nopull — where  an  unfort — 
nate  Englishman — lost  his  life — attempting — to  discover 
the  passage  !" — with  all  these  attractions,  and  a  hundred 
more  which  I  have  forgotten,  no  wonder  that  the  Poly- 
technic cast  the  old  Adelaide  Gallery  into  the  shade,  and 
that  the  proprietors  of  the  latter  were  fain  to  welcome 
an  entire  and  sweeping  change  of  programme. 

Such  an  entertainment  as  that  afforded  by  Laurent's 
Casino  had  never  been  seen  before  in  London.  The  hall 
was  fairly  large,  and  handsomely  decorated ;  the  band, 
led  by  young  Laurent,  and  with  a  wonderful  performer 
on  the  cornet,  named  Arban,  played  the  liveliest  tunes, 
and  kept  superb  time;  and  among  the  light  refreshments 
was  to  be  found  the  then  recently-imported  sherry-cob- 
bler— in  itself  a  source  of  delight  to  thirsty  dancers,  who, 
as  ball  beverages,  had  hitherto  found  nothing  between 
nasty  negus  and  fiery  champagne.  Laurent's  Casino,  no 
doubt  for  its  novelty's  sake,  was  visited  by  all  kinds  and 
conditions  of  men;  it  was  altogether  a  quieter  and  more 
respectable  place  than  the  flaring,  flaunting  Argyll  Rooms 
into  which  it  afterwards  developed.  Meanwhile,  encour- 
aged by  its  success,  another  concern  of  a  somewhat  sim- 
ilar character  had  been  established. 

What  is  now  the  gorgeous  Holborn  Restaurant  was  in 
those  days  the  dingy  Holborn  Swimming-bath — a  very 
gloomy  and,  truth  to  tell,  a  very  dirty  and  smelly  place 
of  recreation.  I  remember  once,  being  mad  about  swim- 
ming— an  art  which  I  had  just  acquired  in  the  delicious 


90  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

Brill's  Bath  at  Brighton — coming  to  the  Holborn  estab- 
lishment full  of  pleasurable  anticipation ;  and  I  remem- 
ber, as  soon  as  I  had  seen  and  —  well,  smelt  the  water 
into  which  I  proposed  plunging,  putting  on  my  jacket 
again,  and  sacrificing  the  shilUng  which  I  had  paid  for 
my  bath.  Later,  the  dirty  water  was  drained  off,  the 
shabby  dressing-boxes  done  away  with,  the  bath  covered 
with  a  flooring  of  springy  boards,  and  the  whole  place 
painted  and  renovated,  and  an  excellent  band,  under  the 
direction  of  a  Mr.  Parker  (who  maintained  his  position 
for  years),  engaged.  There,  too,  as  principal  master  of 
the  ceremonies,  was  a  curious  old  fellow  called  Gourriet, 
who,  with  Signor  Venafra — who  used  to  spend  his  days 
at  Davis's,  the  tobacconist's  in  the  Quadrant  —  had  for 
years  been  one  of  the  leading  hallerinos  at  Her  Majesty's 
Theatre,  and  whose  rapt  enthusiasm  in  beating  time  to 
the  music,  or  pantomimic  extravagance  in  soothing  any 
little  dispute,  was  equally  delicious.  The  Holborn  Casino 
was  a  much  quieter  place  of  resort  than  its  rival,  and  was 
frequented  by  a  different  class;  there  was  some  element 
of  respectability  among  its  female  visitors,  while  among 
the  men  the  genus  "  swell,"  which  predominated  at  the 
other  place,  was  here  almost  entirely  absent,  the  ordinary 
attendants  being  young  fellows  from  the  neighboring 
Inns  of  Court,  medical  students,  Government  clerks,  with 
a  sprinkling  of  the  shopocracy. 

There  were  one  or  two  other  and  superior  temples  of 
Terpsichore  —  the  Portland  Rooms,  generally  known  as 
"Mott's,"  from  the  proprietary,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mott,  wlio 
had  some  connection  with  the  ballet  department  of  the  Op- 
era, and  where,  in  consequence,  one  generally  found  some 
pretty  members  of  the  corps  among  the  dancers.  The 
rooms  were  in  what  was  then  called  Foley  Place — a  broad 
thoroughfare  oi»])Osite  the  cliapel  in  Great  Portland  Street 
— the  admission-fee  was  half  a  crown,  and  tliere  was  a 
fair  five-shilling  supper,  served  in  an  oddly-sliai)ed,  low- 
ceilinged  room  like  the  cabin  of  a  ship.  To  shout  "  Pol- 
kar  !"  after  the  manner  of  Mr.  Frere,  the  M.C.  of  the 
l*orthmd  Rooms,  was  in  those  days  a  very  humorous 
performance.     More  aristocratic,  but  nothing  like  so  pop- 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  91 

ular,  was  "  Weippert's,"  a  weekly  reunion  held  at  the 
Princess's  Concert  -  rooms,  at  the  back  of  the  Princess's 
Theatre,  where  dancing  was  carried  on  from  late  till  ear- 
ly hours,  to  the  music  of  Weippert's  at  that  time  cele- 
brated band. 

Travelling  by  the  South-western  Railway,  I  often  look 
out,  in  passing  the  Vauxhall  Station,  at  a  large,  square, 
brick  house,  the  sole  landmark  of  the  famous  Vauxhall 
Gardens,  long  since  covered  with  houses.  This  individ- 
ual house  was  the  residence  of  Mr.  Wardell,  the  lessee  of 
the  Gardens,  and  the  square  space  in  front  of  it  used  to 
be  filled  all  night  with  cabs  waiting  for  hire.  The  palmy 
days  of  Vauxhall  were,  of  course,  long  before  my  time, 
when  Simpson,  the  renowned  master  of  the  ceremonies, 
flourished,  and  Jos  Sedley  got  drunk  on  rack-punch,  and 
large  parties  of  the  highest  aristocracy  visited  the  place 
and  supped  in  the  queer  little  arbors  and  supper -boxes 
wath  which  it  was  dotted.  The  ai-bors  and  supper-boxes 
were  there  in  my  time,  and  facing  the  pay-place  was  a 
great  sticking-plaster  transparency  of  Simpson  executing 
his  celebrated  bow,  and  with  the  words,  "Welcome  to 
the  Royal  Property  !"  in  a  ribbon  surrounding  his  head  ; 
but  the  aristocracy  had  deserted  it,  and  no  wonder. 

It  was  a  veiy  ghastly  place  :  of  actual  garden  there 
was  no  sign ;  long  covered  arcades,  gravel-strewn  and  lit 
with  little  colored  oil-lamps  ;  an  open-air  orchestra,  the 
front  covered  with  a  huge  shell-shaped  sounding-board, 
under  which  the  singer  stood  ;  a  few  plaster  statues  dot- 
ted here  and  there  ;  a  hermit  in  a  false  beard,  dwelling 
in  a  "property"  cave,  who  told  fortunes;  a  built-up  scene 
in  "profile"  on  the  firework  ground,  representing  some- 
times Vesuvius,  sometimes  a  town  to  be  bombarded  (the 
"Siege  of  Acre"  was,  I  recollect,  popular  at  one  time), 
but  always  utilized  for  firework  purposes.  One  year  it 
was,  I  recollect,  the  Piazza  of  St.  Mark  at  Venice  ;  and 
an  acrobat,  calling  himself  Joel  il  Diavolo,  made  a  "ter- 
rific descent"  from  the  top  of  the  Campanile,  coming 
head-first  down  a  wire  surrounded  by  blazing  fireworks, 
and  with  squibs  and  crackers  in  his  cap  and  heels.  In 
our  uncertain  climate  an  open-air  place  of  entertainment 


92  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

must  always  be  a  doubtful  speculation,  and  vast  sums  of 
money  were  lost  in  Vauxhall,  though  Mr,  Gye,  afterwards 
impresario  of  the  Royal  Italian  Opera,  was  said  to  have 
made  it  pay.  The  liveliest  time  of  the  Gardens  in  my 
recollection  was  when  its  chief  attraction  was  a  circus, 
with  Madame  Caroline,  who  first  introduced  into  England 
the  ordinary  habit-and-hat  riding  now  so  popular  as  the 
hmde  ecole,  and  Auriol,  the  prince  of  French  clowns, 
whose  merry,  self-satisfied  cry  of  "Houp-la!"  is  a  house- 
hold word  in  ring  matters  to  the  present  day. 

But  certainly  during  my  recollection  Vauxhall  Gar- 
dens was  never  a  popular  place  of  recreation.  The  charge 
for  admission  was  high — seldom  less  than  half  a 'crown — 
and  the  journey  there  was  long,  difficult,  and  expensive; 
for,  to  add  to  the  cab  -  fare,  which  was  large,  there  was 
the  bridge-toll  and  a  turnpike — together  ninepence.  The 
refreshments  partaken  of  by  the  "  quality  " — the  skinny 
fowls,  transparent  ham,  oleaginous  salad,  the  champagne 
and  rack-punch — were,  of  course,  also  enormously  dear; 
but  there  was  a  sly  spot  at  the  back  of  the  orchestra 
where  were  dispensed  to  the  knowing  ones  huge,  healthy 
sandwiches,  and  foaming  stout  served  in  eartheuAvare 
tankards,  the  pleasant  memory  of  which  abides  by  me 
yet.  It  may  therefore  be  readily  imagined  that  the  im- 
pecunious youth  of  the  period,  among  whom  I  was  num- 
bered, were  much  more  in  favor  of  Cremorne,  which  was 
opened  as  a  public  garden  just  about  this  time,  and  which, 
in  comparison  with  Vauxhall,  at  least  was  cheap  and 
cheery. 

The  gardens  were  large  and  well  laid  out  ;  some  of 
the  grand  old  trees  had  been  left  standing,  and  afforded 
])]('asant  relief  to  the  town  eyes  which  had  been  staring 
all  day  at  brick  and  stucco,  while  their  murmuring  rustic 
was  jjlcasant  to  the  ears  aching  with  the  echo  of  city 
traffic.  There  were  plenty  of  amusements  —  a  circular 
dancing-])latforni,  with  a  capital  band  in  a  large  kiosk  in 
tlie  middle  ;  a  lot  of  jeux  innocens,  such  as  you  find  at  a 
French  fair  ;  once  a  week  a  balloon  ascent  and  a  very 
good  firework  display.  The  admission-fee  was  one  shil- 
ling ;  there  was  a  hot  dinner  for  half  a  crown,  a  cold 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH,  93 

supper  for  the  same  money  ;  and  it  was  not  considered 
necessary,  as  at  Vauxhall,  to  go  in  for  expense ;  on  the 
contrary,  beer  flowed  freely;  and  it  was  about  this  time, 
I  think,  and  at  Cremorne,  that  the  insidious  "long" 
drinks  —  soda  and  "something"  —  now  so  popular,  first 
made  their  appearance.  Occasionally  there  were  big  ban- 
quets organized  by  certain  "  swells  "  and  held  there,  when 
there  would  be  heavy  drinking,  and  sometimes  a  row — 
on  Derby  night  once,  when  there  was  a  free  fight  which 
lasted  for  hours,  involving  the  complete  smash  of  every- 
thing smashable  ;  and  I  mind  me  of  another  occasion, 
when  a  gigantic  Irishman,  now  a  popular  M.P.,  sent 
scores  of  waiters  flying  by  the  force  of  his  own  unaided 
fists.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  place  was  well  and  quietly 
conducted,  and  five  minutes  after  the  bell  for  closing 
rang — just  before  midnight — the  gardens  were  deserted. 
There  was  a  general  rush  for  the  omnibuses  and  cabs, 
which  were  in  great  demand,  and  for  one  or  two  seasons 
there  was  a  steamboat  which  left  the  adjacent  Cadogan 
pier  at  the  close  of  the  entertainment,  and  carried  pas- 
sengers to  Hungerford  Bridge,  and  which  was  very  pop- 
ular. 

I  have  mentioned  the  Adelaide  Gallery  and  the  Poly- 
technic Institution,  and  there  were  many  other  exhibition 
places  eminently  resj^ectable  and  popular  in  my  youthful 
days,  which  have  since  been  done  away  with,  and  the 
very  names  of  which  are  now  scarcely  heard.  Foremost 
of  these  was  the  Coliseum,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Re- 
gent's Park,  covering  the  space  now  occupied,  I  should 
say,  by  Cambridge  Gate  to  the  front  and  Coliseum  Ter- 
race to  the  rear — an  enormous  polygon,  a  hundred  and 
twenty  -  six  feet  in  diameter,  and  over  a  hundred  feet 
high,  built  from  the  designs  of  Decimus  Burton,  whose 
best -known  work  nowadays  is  the  Marble  Arch.  The 
industrious  John  Timbs,  in  his  "  Curiosities  of  London," 
tells  us  that  the  Coliseum — or  Colosseum,  as  he  spells  it — 
was  so  called  from  its  colossal  size,  and  not  from  any  sup- 
posed resemblance  to  its  namesake  in  Rome.  But  this 
spoils  the  story  of  the  not  too  cultured  cornet  in  the 
Blues,  who  from  Rome  wrote  to  his  friend,  "I  see  they've 


94  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON    LIFE. 

got  a  Coliseum  here,  too  ;  but  it  is  not  in  such  good  re- 
pair as  that  one  near  our  Albany  Street  Barracks."  I 
remember  it  well — my  father,  in  partnership  with  John 
Braham,  once  owned  it,  to  his  sorrow — with  its  wonderful 
panoramas  of  London  by  day  and  London  by  night,  best 
things  of  the  kind  until  eclipsed  by  the  "Siege  of  Paris" 
in  the  Chamjis  -  Elysees  ;  its  glj'-ptotheca,  full  of  plaster 
casts  ;  its  Swiss  chalet,  with  a  real  water-fall,  and  a  mel- 
ancholy old  eagle  flopping  about  its  "  property  "  rocks  ; 
its  stalactite  cavern,  prepared  by  Bradwell  and  Telbin  ; 
and  its  sham  ruins  near  the  desolate  poi-tico.*  Li  a  small 
dark  tank  in  the  interior  of  the  building  I  once  skated  on 
some  artificial  ice  ;  and  there  was  a  lecture  -  theatre,  in 
which  I  found  myself,  just  before  the  final  doom  of  the 
establishment  (I  had  come  in  for  shelter  from  a  rain- 
storm), one  of  an  audience  of  three  listening  to  an  enter- 
tainment given  by  a  little  gentleman,  who  was  nothing 
daunted  by  the  paucity  of  his  appreciators,  and  who  sang 
and  danced  away  as  if  we  had  been  three  thousand.  This 
plucky  neophyte,  then  very  young,  has  since  developed 
into  that  excellent  actor,  Mr,  Edward  Righton. 

To  the  Coliseum,  some  years  before  its  final  fall,  was 
added  the  Cyclorama — an  extraordinarily  realistic  repre- 
sentation of  the  cartliquake  of  Lisbon.  The  manner  in 
which  the  earth  heaved  and  was  rent,  the  buildings  top- 
pled over,  and  the  sea  rose,  was  most  cleverly  contrived, 
and  had  a  most  terrifying  effect  u})on  the  spectators  ; 
frightful  rumblings,  proceeding  apparently  from  under 
your  feet,  increased  the  horror,  which  was  anything  but 
diminished  by  accompanying  musical  performances  on 
that  awful  instrument,  the  apollonicon.  Never  was  bet- 
ter value  in  friglit  given  for  money.  The  Diorama,  on 
the  cast  side  of  I'ark  Square,  Regent's  Park  (a  chapel 
now  stands  on  its  site),  was  memorable  from  the  fact  that 
the  room  in  which  the  spectator  of  the  picture  sat  was 


*  The  gallery  from  wliicli  the  vast  pnnoiainns  of  London  were  inspected 
waH  reauhcil  l»y  a  spiral  staircase,  and  also  by  the  "ascending  room,"  the 
l)rccur8or  of  the  "lifts,"  "elevators,"  and  "ascenscurs,"  now  to  be  found 
in  every  European  and  American  hotel. 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  95 

made  to  revolve  at  intervals,  so  that  the  two  scenes  of 
which  the  exhibition  consisted  were  brought  into  view 
without  persons  quitting  their  seats. 

But  far  the  best  of  all  these  panoramic  shows  was  the 
series  exhibited  at  the  Old  Gallery  of  Illustration  in  Wa- 
terloo Place,  called  "The  Overland  Route,"  and  repre- 
senting all  the  principal  places  between  Southampton  and 
Calcutta.  This  was  the  work  of  those  admirable  scone- 
painters,  Thomas  Grieve  and  AVilliam  Telbin,  and  was 
executed  in  their  painting-rooms  in  Charles  Street,  Drury 
Lane,  a  notorious  thieves'  quarter.  The  human  figures 
were  by  Absolon,  the  animals  by  Herring  and  Harrison 
Weir.  Such  a  combination  of  excellence  had  never  been 
seen,  and  a  clear,  concise,  and  most  pleasantly  delivered 
descriptive  comment  on  the  passing  scene  by  Mr.  Stoc- 
queler,  an  author  and  journalist  of  the  day,  enhanced  the 
success,  which  was  tremendous.  In  those  days,  too,  there 
was  always  to  be  found  on  the  north  side  of  Leicester 
Square  a  clever  panorama  of  some  beautiful  European 
scenery,  painted,  or  at  least  owned,  by  a  gentleman  named 
Burford,  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he  could  never  be  an 
orphan,  as  he  was  never  without  a  pa-nor-a-ma.  Also 
among  daylight  and  respectable  places  of  amusement  of 
my  youth  M'ere  the  Chinese  Exhibition  at  the  St.  George's 
Gallery,  Hyde  Park,  on  the  site  where  the  "tap"  of  the 
Alexandra  Hotel  now  is — an  extraordinary  collection  of 
the  details  of  Chinese  life,  with  some  admirable  wax  fig- 
ures representing  the  different  ranks  and  classes  (a  diora- 
ma of  the  Holy  Land,  a  visit  to  which  had  a  great  effect 
on  my  life,  as  will  be  subsequently  shown,  was  afterwards 
exhibited  here),  and  the  Chinese  junk,  a  veritable  Chinese 
vessel,  manned  by  a  Chinese  crew,  "  without,"  as  Dickens 
said,  "  a  profile  among  the  lot,"  which  sailed  from  Hong- 
Kong  and  anchored  in  the  Thames  off  gloomy  Babylon. 
One  of  the  petty  officers  of  this  junk,  presenting  himself 
at  the  ceremonial  of  the  opening  of  the  Great  Exhibition 
in  '51,  with  pigtail  and  national  costume,  and  being  mis- 
taken for  a  grandee,  was  received  with  the  greatest  honor, 
and  had  one  of  the  best  places  in  the  show. 

AValking  in  the  Park  and  perambulating  the  leading 


96  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

West  End  thoroughfai'es  was  a  cheap  and  never  -  failing 
source  of  amusement  to  me  in  my  youth.  I  soon  learned 
.to  recognize  the  celebrities  of  the  day  of  all  kinds,  and  I 
generally  had  as  companion  some  one  who  had  served  as 
Q, flaneur  much  longer  than  myself,  and  who  enabled  me 
to  add  to  my  list  of  acquaintance  by  sight.  In  those  days 
the  fashionable  drive  and  promenade  were  along  the  north 
side  of  the  Serpentine  —  just  previously  they  had  been 
from  the  Marble  Arch  to  Apsley  House — and  there  were 
as  many  carriages  on  Sundays  as  on  any  other  day  —  per- 
haps more.  I  can  well  remember  Lady  Blessington,  a 
fair,  fat,  middle  -  aged  woman,  in  a  big,  heavy,  swinging 
chariot,  glistening  —  the  chariot,  not  her  ladyship  —  with 
varnish,  and  profusely  emblazoned  with  heraldry,  and  with 
two  enormous  footmen,  cane-carrying,  povrder-headed,  and 
silk-stockinged,  hanging  on  behind.*  One  of  the  Misses 
Power,  her  nieces,  and  remarkably  pretty  girls,  generally 
accompanied  her  ladyship. 

There,  in  a  hooded  cabriolet,  the  fashionable  vehicle 
for  men-about-to^vn,  with  an  enormous  champing  horse 
and  tlie  trimmest  of  tiny  grooms — "  tigers,"  as  they  were 
called — half-standing  on  the  foot-board  behind,  half  swing- 
ing in  the  air,  clinging  on  to  the  straps,  would  be  Count 
d'Orsay,  with  clear-cut  features  and  raven  hair,  the  king 
of  the  dandies,  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes,  the  greatest 
"swell"  of  the  day.  He  was  an  admirable  whip  —  he  is 
reported  on  one  occasion,  by  infinite  spirit  and  dash,  to 
have  cut  the  wheel  off  a  brewer's  dray  which  was  bearing 
down  upon  liis  light  carriage,  and  to  have  spoken  of  it 
afterwards  as  "  the  triumph  of  mind  over  matter  " — and 
always  drove  in  faultless  Avhite  kid  gloves,  with  his  shirt- 
wristbands  turned  back  over  his  coat-cuffs,  and  his  whole 
"turn-out"  was   perfection.     By   his   side,  occasionally, 

*  The  late  John  Hcncoge  Jesse,  "  Jack  Jesse  "  to  his  intimates,  the 
wf'il-l<nown  author,  had  an  aversion,  amoiintinjr  to  a  positive  'phobia,  for 
llio  Uriti.Hh  Jcames.  He  has  l)een  Itnown  to  stand  in  St.  James's  Street  on 
a  F)rawinK-room  day,  at  tlic  edpc  of  the  enrh,  and  with  tlie  end  of  his  stick, 
wliich  ht;  dipped  into  the  road-puddle,  daid)  tlie  immaculate  stockings  of 
tlu!  passing  flunkeys,  who,  as  he  well  knew,  dare  not  move  from  their 
BtalioiiH,  accompanying  the  act  with  much  opprobrious  language. 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  97 

Prince  Louis  Napoleon,  an  exile  too,  after  his  escape  from 
Ham,  residing  in  lodgings  in  King  Street,  St.  James's — he 
pointed  out  the  house  to  the  Empress  Eugenie  when,  as 
Emperor  of  the  French,  on  his  visit  to  Queen  Victoria,  he 
drove  by  it — and  a  constant  visitor  of  Lady  Blessington's 
at  Gore  House.  Albert  Smith,  in  later  years,  used  to  say 
he  wondered  whether,  if  he  called  at  the  Tuileries,  the 
Emperor  would  pay  him  "that  eighteenpence,"  the  sum 
which  one  niglit  at  Gore  House  he  borrowed  from  A.  S. 
to  pay  a  cabman. 

There  were  no  photographs  in  the  shop-windows  in 
those  days,  but  the  lithographed  likenesses  of  beauties 
appeai'ing  in  Albums  and  Keepsakes,  and  dear  to  Mr. 
Guppy  and  Mr.  Jobling,  enabled  us  to  recognize  some  of 
the  ladies  we  saw  in  their  carriages  or  opera-boxes.  The 
Duchess  of  Sutherland,  Mistress  of  the  Robes  to  the  Queen, 
was  then  in  the  full  splendor  of  her  matronly  beauty;  the 
Duchess  of  Wellington,  Lady  Constance  Leveson-Gower, 
afterwards  Duchess  of  Westminster,  Lady  Clementina  Vil- 
liers,  and  her  sister  Lady  Adela  Ibbetson,  Lady  Otway, 
Mrs.  Norton,  Lady  Duflferin,  Lady  Pollington,  Lady  Duff- 
Gordon,  were  among  the  best  known  and  the  most  re- 
nowned. There  were  handsome  men  in  those  days  :  Horace 
Pitt,  afterwards  Lord  Rivers  ;  Cecil  Forrester,  now  Lord 
Forrester  ;  Manners  Sutton,  afterwards  Lord  Canterbury; 
Lincoln  Stanhope;  a  knot  of  Guardsmen — Henry  de  Bathe, 
Charles  Seymour,  Cuthbert  Ellison,  "Jerry"  Meyrick, 
"  Hippy  "  Damer,  Henry  Otway,  Henry  CoUingwood  Ib- 
betson, and  his  brother  Captain  Charles.  Among  the 
Park  riders  —  a  regimental  band  played  twice  a  week, 
Tuesdays  and  Fridays,  in  Kensington  Gardens,  close  by 
the  Magazine,  where  the  people  promenaded,  and  the 
equestrians  formed  in  a  long  line,  with  their  horses'  heads 
facing  the  sunken  wall  —  I  remember  Lord  Cantilupe, 
a  tremendous  swell,  always  lounging  about  and  half-re- 
clining on  his  horse's  back,  as  he  was  inimitably  portrayed 
by  Doyle;  Matthew  Higgins,  "  Jacob  Omnium,"  an  enor- 
mous man,  gray- whiskered,  stern-featured,  but  with  soft 
eyes,  riding  an  enormous  horse  ;  Lord  Palmerston ;  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  acknowledging  all  salutations  with 

5 


9Q  FEFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

his  lifted  forefinger,  and  closely  attended  by  his  groom ; 
Dr.  Billing,  on  an  old  white  nag  ;  Frank  Grant,  afterwards 
P.R.A.;  Lord  Cardigan,  very  stiflf  in  the  saddle;  Lord 
Lucan,  looking  pretty  much  as  he  does  now  ;  Sir  Belling- 
ham  Graham,  a  mighty  hunter  ;  and  Jim  Mason,  the  stee- 
ple-chase rider,  whose  seat  and  hands  surely  have  never 
been  surpassed. 

Coaching  was  at  its  lowest  ebb  just  then,  and  though  I 
suppose  the  Four-in-hand  Club  actually  existed,  I  have  only 
a  remembrance  of  one  "  drag  "  which  went  about  Loudon, 
driven  l)y  a  common-looking  man  named  Savage,  of  whom 
the  legend  ran  that  he  had  been  a  butcher,  and  had  money 
left  him  by  his  wife  on  condition  of  driving  so  many  miles 
daily.  But  there  were  plenty  of  vehicular  notabilities  in 
the  Park  :  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Fitzroy  Stanhope,  easiest 
and  most  courteous  of  divines,  in  the  four-wheeled  trap 
called  after  his  name  ;  Lord  Clanricarde,  in  a  hooded 
phaeton  with  one  horse,  but  that  one  a  wonder  ;  Lord 
ITuntingtowcr,  in  a  great,  banging,  rattling  mail-phaeton  ; 
IVIr.  Tod-IIeatley,  in  the  first  private  hansom  cab  ever  seen 
in  London.  Gigs  are  now  relegated  to  country  doctors' 
use.  Tilburys,  with  a  spring  behind,  britskas,  with  a  back 
seat  called  a  "rumble"  for  servants,  chariots,  with  cane- 
bearing  footmen,  have  all  disappeared ;  and  broughams, 
dog-carts,  tea-carts,  and  victorias  have  come  in  their  place. 
Lithose  days  smoking  in  the  street  was  an  unpardonable 
solecism  ;  a  lady  driving  a  pony  would  have  been  consid- 
ered to  have  unsexed  herself,  while  the  man  seated  by  her 
side  and  passively  allowing  her  to  drive  would  have  been 
voted  a  milksop  and  a  molly. 

Sir  George  Wombwell  and  Lord  Adoljdms  Fitzclarence 
were  social  celebritii's  of  those  tinu's  ;  the  Damon  and 
Pythias  of  clubland,  they  were  scarcely  ever  seen  a]>art. 
Constant  companionship  seemed  to  have  made  them  alike 
— two  red-faced,  cheery,  kindly,  bell-hatted,  frock-coated, 
wide-trotisered  old  iKtys.  A  stroll  in  Parliament  Street 
in  the  afternoon  would  always  j)roduce  its  croj)  of  politi- 
cal celebrities  :  Sir  Robert  IN-d,  a  demure-looking  man, 
in  a  white  waistcoat ;  Lord  John  Russell,  very  small,  with 
too  much  hat  and  an  unpleasant  curl  of  the  lip ;  Lord  EI- 


THE   AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTR  99 

phinstone,  very  good-looking  ;  Mr.  Cobden,  very  common- 
looking  ;  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne,  a  venerable  person- 
age ;  Mr.  A.  H.  Layard,then  just  becoming  known  as  the 
discoverer  of  Nineveh  ;  a  wild-eyed,  thin,  gesticulating 
creature,  Chisholm  Anstey,  who  impeached  Lord  Palm- 
crston  ;  and  the  eccenti'ic  Colonel  Sibthorp.  These  were 
prominent  persons  whom  I  remember;  but  the  introduc- 
tion of  photography  and  the  publication  of  portraits  and 
caricatures  by  the  illustrated  journals  have  given  noto- 
riety to  a  vast  number  of  persons  who  thirty  years  ago 
would  have  remained  unknown. 

Few  places  are  more  changed,  and  changed  for  the  bet- 
ter, in  the  period  of  ray  memory,  than  the  dining-rooms 
and  restaurants  of  London.  Li  the  days  of  my  early 
youth  there  was,  I  suppose,  scarcely  a  capital  city  in  Eu- 
rope so  badly  provided  with  eating-houses  as  ours ;  not 
numerically,  for  there  were  plenty  of  them,  but  the  quali- 
ty was  all  round  bad.  And  this  was  not  for  lack  of  cus- 
tom, or  of  customers  of  an  appreciative  kind;  for,  as  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  point  out,  there  were  comparatively  few 
clubs  at  that  time,  and  those  which  were  in  existence  had 
not  nearly  so  many  members,  nor  were  nearly  so  much 
frequented,  for  dining  purposes  at  least,  as  they  now  are. 
There  was  not,  it  is  true,  in  any  class  so  much  money  to 
spend  as  there  is  now :  young  men  who  to-day  sit  down 
to  soup,  fish,  entrees  —  then  called  "made  dishes" — a 
roast,  a  bird,  a  sweet,  a  savory,  and  a  bottle  of  claret, 
would  then  have  been  content  with  a  slice  oif  the  joint, 
a  bit  of  cheese,  and  a  pint  of  beer ;  but  everything  was 
fifty  per  cent,  cheaper  in  those  times,  and  there  was  an 
ample  profit  on  what  was  supplied. 

The  improvement,  as  I  shall  show,  came  in  suddenly.. 
There  were  no  Spiers  &  Pond,  and  of  course  none  of  the 
excellent  establishments  owned  by  them  ;  no  St.  James's 
Hall,  Cafe  Royal,  Monico's,  Gatti's,  Bristol  or  Continental 
restaurants,  scarcely  one  of  the  now  fashionable  dining- 
houses.  Verrey's  was  in  existence,  to  be  sure,  but  it  was 
regarded  as  a  "  Frenchified  "  place,  and  Avas  very  little 
patronized  by  the  young  men  of  the  day,  though  it  had  a 
good  foreign  connection.     Dubourg's,  in  the  Haymarket, 


100  FIFTY   YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

opposite  the  theatre,  was  in  the  same  categoi'y,  though 
more  patronized  for  suppers.  The  Cafe  de  I'Europe,  next 
door  to  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  originally  started  by 
Henry  Hemming,  who  had  hoQU  jeune  jyremier  at  the  Adel- 
phi,  was,  notwithstanding  its  foreign  name,  a  purely  Eng- 
lish house,  as  far  as  its  cooking  was  concerned.  All  these 
places,  however,  were  far  beyond  the  means  of  me  and 
my  friends.  If  we  wanted  foreign  fare  —  and  truth  to 
tell,  in  those  days  of  youth  and  health,  and  vast  appetite 
and  little  money,  we  were  not  much  given  to  it  —  we 
would  go  to  Rouget's  in  Castle  Street,  Leicester  Square ; 
or  to  Giraudier's  in  the  Haymarket ;  or,  best  of  all,  to 
Berthollini's  in  St.  Martin's  Place,  I  think  it  was  called 
— a  narrow  thoroughfare  at  the  back  of  Pall  Mall  East. 
A  wonderful  man  Berthollini :  a  tall,  thin  Italian  in  a 
black  wig — there  was  a  current  report  that  many  of  the 
dishes  were  made  out  of  his  old  wigs  and  boots ;  but  this 
was  only  the  perversion  by  the  ribalds  of  the  statement 
of  his  supporters,  that  the  flavoring  was  so  excellent  that 
the  basis  of  the  dish  was  immaterial — who  superintended 
everything  himself  and  was  ubiquitous;  now  flying  to 
the  kitchen,  ncnv  uncorking  the  wine,  now  pointing  with 
his  long  skinny  forefinger  to  specially  lovely  pieces  in  the 
dish.  There  was  a  story  that  some  rash  man  once  asked 
to  be  allowed  to  inspect  the  kitchen,  and  that  Berthollini 
had  a  fit  in  consequence.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  culi- 
nary preparations  were  mysterious  ;  l)ut  they  were  well 
flavored,  liiglily  seasoned,  and  much  relished  by  us.  They, 
and  the  pint  of  Chablis  or  claret — all  red  wine  which  was 
not  port  was  claret  in  those  days — were  a  pleasant  change 
from  the  eternal  joint,  the  never-to-be-avoided  chop  or 
steak,  to  which  the  tavern-diner  was  then  condemned. 

The  "Sla])-bang" — so  called  from  the  rate  at  which 
its  meal  was  devoured,  or  from  the  easy  manners  of  those 
who  served  it — was,  in  truth,  not  a  very  appetizing  place : 
it  is  admirably  descril)ed  in  "  Bleak  House,"  wliere  Mr. 
Gu])py  enter(ai)is  the  hungry  .Tobling  and  the  ])reternat- 
urally  -  knowing  Sinallweed.  At  "  Shv])  -  bang's  "  naj)kin8 
were  unknown  ;  the  forkn  were  steel-pronged,  the  spoons 
battered  and  worn,  the  table-cloths  ring-stained  with  pew- 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  101 

ter  pots  and  blotched  witli  old  gravy  and  by-gone  mustard. 
The  room  was  partitioned  off  into  "boxes,"  witli  hard 
and  narrow  seats,  and  a  narrow  slip  of  trestle-table  be- 
tween them ;  attendance  was  given  sometimes  by  females, 
fat  and  bouncing,  like  the  "Polly"  of  Mr.  Guppy's  ban- 
quet ;  or  dirty  and  slatternly;  or  by  men  in  the  shiniest 
and  greasiest  of  black  suits.  I  used  frequently  to  dine  at 
Izant's  in  Bucklersbury,  where,  indeed,  everything  was 
well  done,  mainly  for  the  pleasure  of  being  quit  of  these 
wretches,  and  being  waited  on  by  men  dressed  in  whole- 
some clean  linen  blouses. 

In  the  City,  Tom's,  Joe's,  and  Baker's;  Dolly's  Chop- 
house,  the  Daniel  Lambert  on  Ludgate  Hill,  the  Cheshire 
Cheese,  the  Cock,  the  Rainbow,  Dick's,  Anderton's  —  all 
in  Fleet  Street — the  Mitre  in  Fetter  Lane,  the  Southamp- 
ton in  Southampton  Buildings,  Rudkin's  Salutation  Tav- 
ern in  Newgate  Street,  and  a  house  in  Brownlow  Street, 
Holborn,  where  wonderful  Burton  ale  was  on  draught, 
were  much  frequented. 

More  westerly  places  were  Short's,  the  well-known  wine- 
shop in  the  Strand,  where  at  that  time  dinners  were  served 
in  the  upper  rooms  ;  its  neighbor,  the  Edinburgh  Castle  ; 
Campbell's  Scotch  Stores  in  Duke  Street,  Regent  Street, 
where  Mr.  Blanchard,  the  founder  of  the  celebrated  Res- 
taurant Blanchard,  learned  his  business  ;  Sinclair's  Scotch 
Stores  in  Oxford  Circus  ;  and  the  American  Stores  near 
the  Princess's  Theatre :  there  were  also  some  "  Shades  " 
under  what  is  now  the  Empire  Theatre,  and  what  I  have 
known  variously  as  Miss  Linwood's  needle-work  exhibi- 
tion, the  Walhalla  for  j^oses  j^lastiques,  Saville  House  for 
athletic  shows,  etc.,  etc.  Li  these  underground  "  Shades" 
a  fair  dinner  at  eighteenpence  a  head  could  be  had  in 
cleanliness  and  quiet ;  and  Albert  and  Arthur  Smith  and 
I  used  frequently  to  dine  there  wdiile  the  Mont  Blanc  en- 
tertainment was  in  embryo,  and  discuss  its  chances  of 
success. 

I  well  remember  the  excitement  with  which  we  young 
fellows  about  town  received  the  rumor  that  a  dining- 
place  w^ould  shortly  be  opened  where  things  would  be 
done  as  at  the  clubs,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  we 


102  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

tested  its  truth.  This,  which  was  the  pioneer  of  improve- 
ment, was  the  Grand  Divan  Restaurant,  or,  as  it  was  bet- 
ter known,  "  Simpson's,"  in  the  Strand.  The  name  of 
Simpson  was  at  that  time  a  power  in  the  hotel  and  restau- 
rant world.  There  were  two  brothers,  one  of  whom  had 
the  well-known  fish  ordinary  at  Billingsgate — a  tremen- 
dous repast  for  eighteenpence,  where  the  water  stood  on 
the  table  in  old  hock  bottles,  w^here  everything  was  of  the 
best,  and  where,  after  the  cloth  had  been  removed,  there 
was  much  smoking  of  long  pipes  and  drinking  of  grogs. 
The  other  brother  at  that  time  owned  the  Albion,  oppo- 
site Drury  Lane  Theatre,  principally  in  vogue  as  a  sup- 
per -  house,  and  was  afterwards  the  lessee  of  Cremorne 
Gardens.  Rumor,  for  once,  had  not  exaggerated  ;  the 
whole  thing  was  a  revolution  and  a  revelation.  Large 
tables  and  comfortable  chairs  in  place  of  the  boxes  and 
benches ;  abundance  of  clean  linen  table-cloths  and  nap- 
kins ;  plated  forks  and  spoons;  electro  -  plated  tankards 
instead  of  pewter  pots;  finger-glasses;  the  joint  wheeled 
to  your  side,  and  carved  by  a  being  in  white  cap  and 
jacket ;  a  choice  of  cheeses,  pulled  bread,  and  a  properly 
made-out  bill  :  all  these  were  wondrous  and  acceptable 
innovations.  The  edibles  and  potables  were  all  of  first 
quality;  the  rooms  were  large  and  well  ventilated  ;  the 
attendants  were  clean,  civil,  and  quick  ;  and  the  superin- 
tendence of  "Charles" — formerly  of  the  Albion,  but  who 
had  now  blossomed  into  Mr.  Daws — was  universal.  Of 
course  every  well-conducted  restaurant  nowadays  is  con- 
ducted on  these  principles — "  all  can  grow  the  flower  now, 
for  all  have  got  the  seed  ;"  but  the  honor  of  originating 
tlie  new  style  belongs  to  Simjjson. 

A  want  of  a  similar  establishment  at  the  West  End  was 
sj)eedily  supplied  by  the  conversion  of  the  fine  building 
in  St.  James's  Street — which,  originally  Crockford's  Club, 
had  been  utilizi-d  as  a  dancing-shop  and  a  picture-exhibi- 
tion— into  tlie  Wellington  Restaurant,  which,  carried  out 
on  Simpson's  model,  tlourished  for  a  time.  The  rent,  how- 
ever, was  so  enormous  as  to  swallow  up  all  the  profits, 
and  the  concern  was  abandoned.  Simpson's  also  served 
as  the  prototype  for  a  more  easterly  imitator:  Messrs. 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  103 

Sawyer  &  Strange,  great  refreshment  contractors  of  that 
day,  started  the  "  London  dinner  "  in  the  upper  floors  of 
the  house  in  Fleet  Street,  the  corner  of  Chancery  Lane, 
and  for  some  time  were  successful. 

Fish  dinners  at  Greenwich  and  Blackwall  were,  I  think, 
more  in  vogue  then  than  they  are  now ;  indeed  the  latter 
place,  where  Lovegrove's,  the  Brunswick,  and  the  Arti- 
choke flourished,  is  quite  extinct  as  a  dining -place.  It 
was,  I  recollect,  at  Lovegrove's  that  the  directors  of  the 
then  existing  General  Screw  Steam  Shipping  Company — 
of  which  Mr.  J.  Lyster  O'Beirne  was  secretary  —  gave, 
after  the  launch  of  one  of  their  vessels  from  Rolt  &  Mare's 
yard,  a  great  lunch,  at  which  Shirley  Brooks  was  present, 
and  which  he  utilized  for  descriptive  purposes  in  the 
opening  chapter  of  "  Miss  Violet  and  her  Oifers,"  his  first 
contribution  to  Punch.  The  only  Greenwich  house  of 
that  day  now  remaining  is  the  Trafalgar,  little  altered 
since  it  was  owned  by  Mr.  Hart,  whose  rival — Mr.  Quar- 
termaine,  who  established  the  present  Ship  —  then  con- 
ducted the  Crown  and  Sceptre,  now  extinct  or  very  much 
diminished. 

In  those  days  there  were  two  smaller  fish-dinner  houses 
at  Greenwich  called,  I  think,  the  Yacht  and  the  Ship  Tor- 
bay.  In  those  days  people  drove  to  Greenwich — the  rail 
was  comparatively  little  used  by  the  luxurious — and  every 
summer  evening,  and  especially  on  a  Sunday,  there  would 
be  a  serried  phalanx  of  fifty  or  sixty  horseless  carriages, 
drags,  barouches,  cabriolets,  broughams,  and  hansoms  out- 
side the  principal  hotels.  The  laying  of  the  tram-rails  on 
the  principal  roads  put  an  end  to  all  possibilities  of  pleas- 
ant driving  :  the  charioteers  and  owners  of  private  vehi- 
cles declined  to  submit  them  to  the  unavoidable  twists 
and  wrenchings ;  and  the  result  to  the  Greenwich  tavern- 
keepers  is,  it  is  said,  a  loss  of  seven  thousand  a  year. 
Richmond,  as  a  dining -place,  occupied  then  much  the 
same  position  as  now.  The  view  was  always  better  than 
the  dinner.  The  old  Star  and  Garter,  since  burned  down, 
was  a  much  more  modest  hostelry  than  the  enormous  edi- 
fice which  stands  on  its  site,  and  competed  for  custom 
Avith  the  Castle,  recently  closed.     The  Roebuck  and  the 


104  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Talbot  were  as  they  now  are;  and  at  Hampton  Court, 
beside  the  still  existent  Mitre  and  Greyhound  at  either 
end  of  the  gardens,  there  was  a  famous  hotel  not  far  from 
the  river  called  the  Toy.  Toton's — afterwards  Wilcox's 
— at  Mortlake,  the  SAvan  at  Staines,  the  Bells  of  Ouseley, 
the  Cricketers  at  Chertsey,  were  well  known  to  the  com- 
paratively few  men  who  took  interest  in  the  river ;  while 
below  bridge  Waite's  Hotel  at  Gravesend  was  largely 
patronized  by  eastward  -  bound  passengers  who  joined 
ship  there. 

Those  were  the  days  of  supper,  for  at  that  time  a  be- 
neficent Legislature  had  not  ordained  that,  at  a  certain 
hour,  no  matter  how  soberly  we  may  be  enjoying  our- 
selves in  a  house  of  public  entertainment,  we  were  to  be 
turned  into  the  streets.  There  were  many  houses  which 
combined  a  supper  with  a  dinner  business  ;  there  were 
some  which  only  took  down  their  shutters  when  ordinary 
hard  -  working  peojile  were  going  to  bed.  Among  the 
former  were  the  oyster-shops:  Quinn's  in  the  Haymarket; 
Scott's,  facing  that  broad  -  awake  thoroughfare  ;  a  little 
house  (name  forgotten)  in  Ryder  Street  —  not  Wilton, 
who  closed  at  twelve  ;  Godwin's,  with  the  celebrated 
Charlotte  as  its  attendant  Hebe,  in  the  Strand  near  St. 
Mary's  Church.  Godwin's  Avas  occasionally  patronized 
by  journalists  and  senators  Avho  lived  in  the  Temple  pre- 
cincts— the  beaming  face  of  Morgan  John  O'Connell  Avas 
frequently  to  be  seen  there,  and  Douglas  Jerrold  would 
sometimes  look  in.  Charlotte  Avas  supposed  to  be  one  of 
the  few  Avho  had  ever  silenced  the  great  Avit :  he  had 
been  asking  for  some  time  for  a  glass  of  brandy -and- 
Avater  ;  and  Avhen  at  length  Charlotte  placed  before  him 
the  steaming  jorum,  she  said,  "There  it  is,  you  trouble- 
some little  man ;  mind  you  don't  fall  into  it  and  droAvn 
yourself."  Jerrold,  who  Avas  very  sensitive  to  any  re- 
marks upon  his  small  and  bent  figure,  collapsed. 

Other  famous  oyster-houses  of  that  day,  as  they  are  of 
this,  were  Linn's  in  the  Strand,  Pimm's  in  the  Poultry, 
and  Sweeting's  in  Clieapside;  but  they  Avere  all  closed  at 
night.  Restaurants  Avhere  the  i)resence  of  ladies  at  sup- 
per was  encouraged  rather  than  objected  to  were   the 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  105 

Caf6  de  I'Europe,  in  the  large  room  at  the  back  (the 
front  room,  entered  immediately  from  the  street,  was  re- 
served for  gentlemen,  and  will  be  mentioned  elsewhere), 
and  Dubourg's,  already  mentioned,  the  proprietor  of  which 
— a  fat  elderly  Frenchman,  his  portly  presence  much  girt 
with  gold  watch-chain — was  a  constant  attendant  at  the 
Opera,  and  was  well  known  to  the  roues  of  the  day.  Then 
there  were  the  regnlar  "night-houses,"  the  company  and 
the  doings  at  which  were,  I  imagine,  equivalent  to  those 
at  "The  Finish,"  as  depicted  in  the  career  of  Tom  and 
Jerry  by  George  Cruikshank.  There  were  many  ;  but 
the  two  best  known  and  most  frequented  were  the  Blue 
Posts  and  "  Bob  Croft's." 

The  Blue  Posts — not  to  be  confounded  with  the  well- 
known  tavern  of  the  same  name  in  Cork  Street — in  the 
lower  portion  of  the  Haymarket,  was,  I  suppose,  an  ordi- 
nary public-house,  though  it  never  struck  any  of  its  fre- 
quenters to  regard  it  in  that  light.  For  a  vast  number 
of  people  it  was  the  regular  place  of  adjournment  on  the 
closing  of  the  theatres  and  the  dancing-halls.  At  mid- 
night the  passage  from  the  outside  door,  the  large  space 
in  front  of  the  bar,  the  stairs  leading  to  the  upper  rooms, 
the  upper  rooms  themselves,  were  closely  packed  by  a 
dense  mass  of  men  and  women,  through  which  no  man 
but  one  could  have  forced  his  way.  This  was  a  waiter, 
a  great  favorite,  owing  to  his  imperturbable  good-humor, 
and  well  known  from  his  peculiar  cry  of  "Mind  the 
sauce,  please  !  mind  the  sauce  and  the  gravy!"  with  which 
he,  heavily  laden  with  supper-trays,  would  steer  his  way 
through  the  throng.  The  house,  taken  for  what  it  was, 
was  exceedingly  well  conducted;  and  though  the  conver- 
sation might  have  been  more  choice  and  more  subdued, 
any  rowdyism  was  at  once  put  down.  This  was,  in  a 
measure,  due  to  the  respect  felt  by  the  regular  frequent- 
ers for  the  landlord  and  landlady,  an  old  Scotch  couple 
named  Dick,  shrewd  and  business-like,  but  Avithal  kindly, 
quiet,  respectable  people,  who  did  many  a  good  turn  to 
some  of  their  customers  when  out  of  luck.  They  lived 
at  Hampstead,  going  up  there  in  the  early  morning,  com- 
ing down  into  London  late  at  night;  and  I  often  thought 


106  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

of  the  strange  contrast  between  their  daylight  existence, 
among  their  flowers  and  birds,  in  fresh  air  and  perfect 
quiet,  and  the  thick  atmosphere  reeking  with  spirits  and 
tobacco,  the  roar  and  din  and  confusion  of  the  strange 
company  in  which  their  nights  were  passed. 

"Bob  Croft's"  was  a  much  later  house,  and  one  of  a 
different  stamp — no  one  ever  accused  its  landlord  of  re- 
spectability, though  he  too  lived  in  the  daytime  in  the 
country,  in  a  j^retty  cottage  at  Kingston  Hill.  He  was 
a  burly,  red-faced,  jolly-looking  fellow,  in  a  white  waist- 
coat, not  without  humor  of  a  very  broad  kind,  and  fa- 
mous for  much  undiluted  repartee.  AVhen  the  balloon  in 
which  Albert  Smith  and  others  ascended  from  Vauxhall 
came  to  grief,  and  Albert  was  spilt  into  the  road,  he  was 
picked  up  by  Croft,  who  used  to  naiTate  the  story  as  a 
strange  meeting  of  two  celebrated  characters.  Bob  Croft's 
daughter  married  a  baronet,  and  afterwards  appeared  with 
fair  success  on  the  stage. 

Although  the  palmy  days  of  public  gambling  were  over, 
there  were  several  private,  very  private,  establishments  at 
which  the  interesting  games  of  roulette  and  French  haz- 
ard were  niglitly  ])layed,  and  where  the  stakes  varied  from 
a  five-pound  note  to  a  humble  half-crown.  The  Berke- 
ley in  Albcrmarle  Street,  and  Lyley's  ;  Morris's  in  Jermyn 
Street,  over  a  boot-maker's  shoj) ;  "  Goody  "  Levy's — the 
gentleman  who  came  to  grief  over  the  Running  Rein  case 
— in  Panton  Street :  these  and  several  others  flourished 
at  the  time,  jirototypes  of  "  The  Little  Nick,"  wliere  read- 
ers of  "Pendeiniis"  will  remember  Sir  Francis  Clavering 
wooed  fickle  Fortune.  The  hiodus  operandi  was  pretty 
much  the  same  everywhere.  You  pulled  a  bright-knobbed 
bell,  which  responded  with  a  single  muftled  clang,  and  the 
door  was  opened  silently  by  a  speechless  man  who  closed 
it  quickly  behind  you.  Confronting  you  was  another 
door,  generally  sheeted  with  iron  covered  with  green  baize; 
in  its  centre  a  small  glazed  aperture,  through  which  the 
visitor,  in  his  temporary  <|uaraiitine,  was  closely  scruti- 
nized. If  the  survey  was  uns.it isfactory — if,  that  is  to 
say,  he  looked  like  a  Kj)y,  or  a  stranger  merely  prompted 
by  curio-jity — he  was  bidden  to  ])e  off,  and  in  case  of  need 


THE   AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  107 

he  was  thrust  out  by  the  strong  and  silent  porter.  If  lie 
were  known,  or  "  looked  all  right,"  the  door  was  opened, 
and  the  visitor  passed  up  richly  carpeted  stairs  into  the 
first  floor.  The  front  room  was  set  apart  for  play:  a  long 
table  covered  with  a  green  cloth,  divided  by  tightly 
stretched  pieces  of  string  into  the  spaces  for  the  "in" 
and  the  "  out " — the  game  being  hazard — and  a  few  chairs 
for  the  players;  the  croupiers,  each  armed  with  a  hooked 
stick,  instead  of  the  usual  rake,  for  the  collection  of  the 
money,  faced  each  other  in  the  middle  of  the  table  ;  the 
shutters  were  closed  and  thick  curtains  were  drawn.  The 
back  room  was  given  uj:)  to  a  substantial  supper  of  cold 
chickens,  joints,  salads,  etc.,  which  with  sherry,  brandy, 
etc.,  was  provided  gratis.  In  the  places  I  have  named  the 
play,  taken  for  what  it  was,  was  perfectly  fair,  so  that 
there  was  no  occasion  for  the  presence  of  sham  players, 
"  bonnets,"  as  they  are  called,  who  act  as  decoys  ;  the 
company  was  mostly  composed  of  men-about-town,  the 
majority  of  them  middle-aged,  with  occasionally  a  law- 
yer, a  West  End  tradesman,  and  almost  invariably  a  well- 
known  usurer,  who  came  there,  however,  to  play,  not  to 
ply  his  trade. 

Money  was  lost  and  won  without  display  of  excite- 
ment ;  I  never  saw  anything  approaching  a  "  scene "  in 
a  London  gaming-house.  The  greatest  excitement  was 
once,  when  about  2  a.m.,  in  the  middle  of  play,  after  a 
sharp  whistle  outside  which  caused  the  croupiers  at  once 
to  cut  and  clear  away  the  strings  dividing  the  table,  and 
to  cover  it  with  a  white  cloth,  swallowing,  as  some  said, 
the  dice — at  all  events  instantly  hiding  them — we  heard 
a  tremendous  crash  below,  and  found  the  police  were 
breaking  down  the  iron  door  with  sledge-hammers.  The 
scene  was  very  like  that  so  cleverly  portrayed  in  "  Artful 
Cards  :"  when  the  inspector  and  his  men  entered,  they 
found  a  few  gentlemen  peacefully  supping,  smoking,  and 
chatting.  We  had  to  give  our  names  and  addresses,  but 
never  heard  any  more  of  it. 

The  most  popular  places  of  resort  for  such  young  men 
as  kept  late  hours  were,  however,  the  supper-and-singing 
taverns,  which  were  ahvays  respectably  conducted,  though 


108  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

in  my  early  days  there  was  an  element  of  ribaldry  in  the 
amusement  provided  which  was  afterwards  suppressed. 
The  best  known  of  these  were  the  Coal  Hole,  the  Cider 
Cellars,  and  Evans's.  The  Coal  Hole  was  in  a  court  out 
of  the  Strand,  near  the  Cigar  Divan — Fountain  Court  I 
think  it  is  called.  It  has  long  since  been  appropriated  to 
other  purposes,  and  is  now  the  Occidental  Tavern.  The 
landlord  was  one  John  Rhodes,  a  burly  fellow  with  a  bass 
voice,  who  sat  at  the  head  of  the  singers'  table  and  joined 
in  the  glees,  which  were  sung  without  instrumental  ac- 
companiment. From  my  recollection  of  Rhodes  and  his 
room,  I  imagine  that  he  was  Hoskins,  the  landlord  of  the 
Cave  of  Harmony,  where  Costigan  sang  the  outrageous 
song  which  caused  Colonel  Newcome  to  rate  the  com- 
pany. It  is  certain  that  "little  Nadab,  the  improvisa- 
tore,"  of  whom  Thackeray  speaks,  was  a  certain  Mr. 
Sloman,  who  called  himself  "the  only  English  impro- 
visatore,"  who  used  to  sing  at  the  Coal  Hole,  and  the 
outpourings  of  whose  improvisations  were  remarkably  like 
the  specimens  given  in  "  The  Newcomes."  Only,  in  my 
time  at  least,  the  singing  at  the  Coal  Hole  was  confined 
to  professionals,  and  no  visitor  would  have  been  allowed 
to  volunteer  a  song,  as  did  the  colonel.  The  celebrities 
of  the  place  were  Rhodes  himself,  a  young  fellow  called 
Cave  —  the  first,  I  believe,  to  introduce  to  England  the 
American  banjo  as  an  accompaniment  for  the  voice — and 
a  dreadful  old  creature  called  Joe  Wells,  Avho  used  to 
sing  most  disgusting  ditties.  The  Coal  Hole  never  had 
the  reputation  or  the  position  of  either  of  its  rivals,  and 
was  the  first  to  succumb  to  the  alteration  in  public  taste. 
The  Cider  Collars,  next  to  the  stage-door  of  the  Adclphi 
in  IMaidon  Lane,  now  converted  into  a  Jewish  synagogue, 
had  deservedly  a  far  wider  renown.  It  was  described, 
under  its  own  name,  by  Albert  Smith  in  the  "Medical 
Student"  and  "Mr.  Ledbury,"  and  was  the  prototype  of 
tlic  Hack  Kitclien,  immorlali/.od  in  "Pendennis."  Thus 
Thackeray  clironicles  its  company:  "Healthy  country 
tradesmen  and  fanners  in  London  for  their  business  came 
and  recreated  themselves  with  the  jolly  singing  and  sup- 
p<rs  of  the  Back  Kitchen  ;  squads  of  young  apprentices 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  109 

and  assistants — the  shutters  being  closed  over  the  scene 
of  their  labors — came  hither,  for  fresh  air  doubtless  ;  rak- 
ish young  medical  students,  gallant,  dashing,  what  is  called 
loudly  dressed,  and,  must  it  be  owned?  somewhat  dirty, 
came  liere,  smoking  and  drinking  and  vigorously  applaud- 
ing the  songs  ;  young  University  bucks  were  to  be  found 
here  too,  with  that  indescribable  simper  which  is  only 
learned  at  the  knees  of  Alma  Mater ;  and  handsome 
young  guardsmen,  and  florid  bucks  from  the  St.  James's 
Street  clubs  ;  nay,  senators — English  and  Irish — and  even 
members  of  the  House  of  Peers."  Thackeray  goes  on  to 
say  that  all  these  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  assembled 
to  hear  a  bass  singer  named  Hodgen,  who  had  made  an 
immense  hit  with  his  song  of  the  "Body-snatcher."  The 
singer  from  whom  Hodgen  was  drawn  was  a  man  named 
Ross,  and  the  song  which  he  sang  and  which  had  the 
enormous  success  which  Thackeray  describes  was  called 
"  Sam  Hall,"  the  chant  of  a  murderous  chimney-sweep  of 
that  name  just  before  his  execution.  It  was  a  good  bit 
of  realistic  acting  :  the  man,  made  up  with  a  ghastly  face, 
delivered  it  sitting  across  a  chair,  and  there  was  a  horrible 
anathematizing  refrain.  The  effect  produced  was  tre- 
mendous, and  for  months  and  months,  at  the  hour  when 
it  was  known  that  "  Sam  Hall "  would  be  sung,  there  was 
no  standing  -  place  in  the  Cider  Cellars.  When  I  first 
knew  the  place  its  landlord  was  William  Rhodes,  brother 
of  the  Coal  Hole  jiroprietor  ;  but  he  died  before  the  "  Sam 
Hall "  mania,  and  the  person  who  profited  by  that  was  his 
widow,  a  clever  managing  woman,  who  conducted  the 
general  business  with  great  success.  The  entertainment 
provided  was  of  the  same  class  as  at  the  Coal  Hole  :  in 
the  early  days  I  remember  a  comic  singer  named  Pen- 
nikett,  another  named  Labern  ;  later  on,  a  man  named 
Moody,  who  sang  well  and  gave  excellent  imitations. 

But  of  all  these  places,  the  most  celebrated,  undoubted- 
ly, in  its  time,  and  the  most  likely  to  be  remembered  here- 
after, was  Evans's,  at  the  western  corner  of  the  Covent 
Garden  Piazza,  under  the  building  which  was  then  a 
hotel  and  is  now  the  New  Club.  This  room,  as  well  as 
the  Coal  Hole,  has  figured  as  the  "  Cave  of  Harmony  "  in 


110  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Thackeray's  writings  ;  to  it  little  Grigg  conducts  Mr. 
Spec — "  So  we  went  through  the  Piazza,  and  down  the 
steps  of  that  well-remembered  place  of  conviviality  " — in 
the  course  of  their  "  night's  pleasure,"  and  there  they  en- 
counter Bardolph  of  Brasenose.  "Evans's  late  Joy's" 
was  the  unintentionally  punning  inscription  on  the  lamp 
when  I  first  knew  it ;  but  even  then  Evans  had  departed, 
and  the  presiding  spirit  was  John,  better  known  as  "  Pad- 
dy," Green  —  a  worthy  fellow,  who  had  been  a  chorus- 
singer  at  the  Adelphi,  and  whose  courtesy  and  good  tem- 
per won  him  vast  popularity.  For  the  first  few  years  of 
my  acquaintance  with  it  the  concert-room  was  small  and 
low-pitched,  with  a  bit  added  on  at  right  angles  at  its  ex- 
treme end.  But  even  then  it  had  a  good  reputation  for 
music.  John  Binge  the  tenor,  S.  A.  Jones  the  basso,  the 
host  himself,  were  well  known  as  singers  ;  TIerr  von  Joel 
— a  queer  old  German,  who  sang  jodling  ditties,  played 
tunes  on  what  he  called  a  "  vokingshteeck,"  and  gave 
capital  imitations  of  the  birds  and  beasts  of  a  farm-yard — 
was  a  great  attraction  ;  while  the  comic  element,  as  sup- 
plied by  Sharp  and  Sam  Cowell,  was  unapproachable  else- 
where. No  man  in  my  recollection,  as  a  l)roadly  comic 
vocalist,  has  been  such  a  favorite  as  was  J.  W.  Sharp  :  at 
Vauxhall  and  Cremorne  in  the  summer,  at  public  dinners 
in  the  Avinter,  and  at  Evans's  always,  he  was  fully  em- 
ployed. But  he  fell  into  bad  ways,  took  to  drinking,  lost 
his  engagements,  and  was  finally  found  dead  from  starva- 
tion on  a  country  road.  Cowell  was  an  actor  as  well  as  a 
singer,  and  had  a  certain  amount  of  success  on  the  stage. 
It  was  in  this  small  room  that  Bardolph  of  Brasenose 
signalled  liis  desire  for  more  drink  by  whack-whacking 
with  tlie  pewter  noggin,  and  that  Thackeray  heard  the 
sentimental  and  the  piratical  ballad  which  he  parodied  so 
deliciously.  After  a  time  a  change  took  place  in  the  style 
of  entertainment:  all  ribald  songs  —  and  often  Evans's 
had  been  quite  as  profane  as  Its  rivals — were  stopped  for- 
ever, and  the  choruses  were  sung  by  trained  young  lads, 
whose  sweet,  fresh  voi(;es  were  licard  with  charming  ef- 
fect in  the  old  glees  and  madrigals.  The  little  room  was 
too  small  for  the  audience  ;  it  was  pulled  down,  and  a 


THE   AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  HI 

vast  concert-room  built  on  its  site,  with  a  stage  where  the 
singers  stood,  and  an  annexe — a  comfortable  kind  of  hall, 
hung  with  theatrical  portraits,  etc. — where  conversation 
could  be  carried  on,  and  it  was  by  no  means  necessary  to 
listen  to  the  music. 

The  public  thronged  to  the  concert-room — there  was  a 
private  supper-room  in  the  gallery,  looking  down  on  the 
hall  through  a  grille,  where  ladies  could  hear  the  songs 
and  could  see  without  being  seen  —  and  the  annexe  be- 
came, and  continued  for  several  years,  a  popular  resort 
for  men-abouttown.  Thackeray  Avas  constantly  there  ; 
Sergeant  Murphy,  Sergeant  Ballantine,  Jerrold,  Lionel 
Lawson  ;  sometimes  Sala,  Hannay,  and  some  of  the 
younger  men  ;  Albert  and  Arthur  Smith,  fresh  from  the 
"  Show  ;"  Horace  Mayhew,  very  occasionally  Leech. 
Chops  and  potatoes  —  never  to  be  equalled  —  were  the 
ordinary  supper  ;  as  Mrs.  Prig  says,  "  the  drinks  was  all 
good  ;"  and  some  of  the  smartest  talk  in  London  was  to 
be  heard  at  Evans's  about  the  years  '58  to  '60,  when  the 
old  night  clubs  had  ceased  to  be,  and  the  present  ones 
had  not  been  thought  of.  Through  concert -room  and 
annexe  Paddy  Green  wandered,  snuffbox  in  hand,  God- 
blessing  his  "dear  boys"  —  i.e.,  every  one  to  whom  he 
spoke  —  and  getting  more  and  more  around  him  as  the 
night  wore  on.  lie  prospered  for  many  years  and  ought 
to  have  made  a  fortune  ;  but  he  did  not,  and  the  intro- 
duction of  music-halls,  where  women  formed  the  larger 
portion  of  the  audience,  was  the  signal  for  his  downfall. 

One  other  place  of  public  entertainment,  though  nei- 
ther singing  nor  supper  house,  must  be  mentioned  here. 
The  Garrick's  Head  was  a  large  tavern  in  Bow  Street, 
facing  Co  vent  Garden  Theatre  ;  its  landlord  was  one 
Renton  Nicholson,  a  clever,  versatile,  wholly  unprincipled 
fellow,  who  had  been  connected  with  the  turf,  connected 
with  the  stage,  had  owned  and  edited  an  atrociously 
blackguard  weekly  journal  called  The  Town,  and  at  the 
Garrick's  Head  had  instituted  a  new  kind  of  dramatic 
performance,  in  which  he  played  the  principal  character. 
The  entertainment  was  called  "The  Judge  and  Jury 
Society,"  and  was  a  parody  on  the  proceedings  in  those 


112  FIFTY  TEARS  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

law-courts  wliere  actions  of  a  certain  character  wero  tried; 
was  presided  over  by  Nicholson  himself  as  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice,  in  full  wig  and  gown;  the  case  being  argued  out 
by  persons  dressed  as,  and  in  some  instances  giving  also 
imitations  of,  leading  barristers,  and  the  witnesses  being 
actors  of  more  or  less  versatility  and  mimetic  ability. 
The  whole  affair  was  written  and  arranged  by  Nicholson, 
who  deported  himself  on  the  bench  with  the  most  solemn 
gravity,  the  contrast  between  which  and  his  invariable 
speech  on  taking  his  seat — "  Usher  !  get  me  a  cigar  and 
a  little  brandy-and- water " — was  the  signal  for  the  first 
laugh.  The  entertainment  was  undoubtedly  clever,  but 
was  so  full  of  grossness  and  indecency  expressed  and  im- 
plied, as  to  render  it  wholly  disgusting.  In  the  window 
of  the  tavern  was  a  large  painting  representing  the  mock 
trial,  with  Nicholson  on  the  bench,  and  all  the  celebrities 
of  the  day  ranged  round  the  room  ;  underneath  this  pict- 
ure Avas  a  set  of  verses,  supposed  to  have  been  written  in 
honor  of  the  place  by  Tom  Moore,  and  beginning,  as  I 
recollect : 

"  Oh,  where  can  you  better  enjoy  your  late  glasses 
Tlian  under  that  fane,  where  the  genius  of  wit 
Illumines  each  grain  of  our  sand  as  it  passes  ?"  etc. 

Among  the  amusements  of  my  youth  I  must  not  forget 
my  athletic  exercises,  from  which  I  derived  so  much  ben- 
efit and  delight.  I  first  rode  in  Rotten  Row  —  having 
made  previous  experiments  at  Brighton  —  in  the  year 
1849,  on  a  horse  hired  for  the  season  from  Peter  Ilowden, 
job-raastor  of  York  Terrace  Mews  ;  the  yard  is  there  still, 
though  Peter's  last  job  —  a  black  one  —  was  long  since 
done.  With  very  little  intermission,  I  have  ridden  there 
every  succeeding  year  up  to  tlic  present.  I  began  rowing 
on  the  Thames  in  the  year  1847,  and  continued  the  prac- 
tice, off  and  on,  until  the  year  1878,  when  I  changed  my 
skiff  into  a  steam-launch.  In  the  early  days  I  and  two 
Post-ofllce  colleagues  had  a  randan  gig  built  for  us  by 
Searle  of  I*utney,  where,  under  the  charge  of  the  head 
man,  Miller,  we  used  to  keep  her.  Our  usual  evening's 
])ull  was  up  to  Riclnncmd — if  we  had  time — and  back  to 


THE  AMUSEMENTS  OF  YOUTH.  113 

the  White  Hart  at  Morllake,  kept  by  old  Totoii,  where 
we  had  supper  off  ham  and  eggs  and  shandy-gaff. 

I  was  also  exceedingly  fond  of  sparring,  which  I  learned 
first  from  old  Nat  Langham,  in  an  empty  room  of  a  tavern 
in  the  Strand,  where  the  barracks  of  the  Commissionaires 
now  are,  and  afterwards  from  young  Alec  Keene,  a  mighty 
pretty  fighter.  I  never  had  much  science,  but  being 
strong  and  very  long  in  the  reach,  and  being  able  to  take 
a  good  amount  of  "  punishment,"  I  was  rather  an  awk- 
ward customer.  Years  after  I  had  given  up  the  gloves, 
I  was  looking  on  at  a  wrestling  exhibition  in  Leicester 
Square,  and  was  thinking  how  savagely  it  was  conducted, 
and  what  frightful  concussions  the  thrown  men  received, 
when  I  felt  my  arm  touched  by  Alec  Keene,  whom  I  had 
not  seen  for  ages,  but  who  said,  with  a  smile,  "You  and 
I  used  to  knock  each  other  about  at  one  time,  Mr.  Yates, 
but  I  don't  think  we  could  either  of  us  have  stood  much 
of  this !" 


114  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  DRAMA  IN  THOSE  DAYS. 

1847-1852. 

The  number  of  theatres  in  London  in  the  present  year 
of  grace  is,  according  to  that  excellent  authority  on  all 
dramatic  matters,  the  "  Era  Almanack,"  thirty-seven  ;  in 
the  year  1847  it  was  thirteen,  including  Her  Majesty's 
and  Covent  Garden,  which  were  both  devoted  to  Italian 
opera,  and  the  St.  James's,  where,  during  the  brief  season 
in  which  it  was  open,  French  i:»lays  were  performed  by 
French  players.  In  this  number  I  reckon  the  transpon- 
tine Surrey  and  Victoria,  and  the  suburban  Sadler's 
Wells,  but  not  the  far-eastward  Pavilion,  nor  the  Grecian 
and  Britannia,  which,  though  in  existence,  called  them- 
selves in  those  days  "  Saloons ;"  indeed,  the  former  was 
then  still  known  as  the  Eagle  Tavern.  The  theatres  of 
which  I  speak  were  Her  Majesty's,  Covent  Garden,  Drury 
Lane,  Ilaymarket,  Lyceum,  Princess's,  Adelphi,  Olympic, 
St.  James's,  Sadler's  Wells,  Marylebone,  Surrey,  Victoria; 
and  of  these,  according  to  my  knowledge  of  them,  I  pro- 
pose to  spt'ak  in  detail. 

To  Her  Majesty's  I  had  already  been  introduced  in  my 
school-boy  days  by  the  kindly  daughter  of  Mr.  Williams, 
a  friend  of  my  mother's  and  a  ])artner  in  Cockburn's 
Hank,  at  the  corner  of  AVhitehall  IMace,  where  she  kept 
her  bank  account.  "^I'liis  worthy  lady,  herself  passionately 
fond  of  music,  imagined  every  one  else  nnist  be  in  a  simi- 
lar condition ;  but  though  I  was  glad  enough  to  accom- 
])any  her,  the  chief  attractions  to  me  then  were  the  lights 
ajid  the  (!onij»any  ;  later  on,  the  charms  of  the  ballet  as- 
serted their  sway. 

TLe  opening  of  the  season  of  '17  at  Her  Majesty's  was 


THE   DRAMA   IN  THOSE   DAYS.  115 

exceptionally  dull ;  the  great  foud  betvv'ecn  Mr.  Liunley, 
the  lessee,  and  his  conductor,  Signor  Costa,  and  i)rincipal 
singers,  Madame  Grisi  and  Signor  Mario,  bad  been  fol- 
lowed by  the  secession  of  the  best  part  of  the  troupe,  and 
the  conversion  of  Covent  Garden  Theatre  into  an  opera- 
house,  under  the  management  of  Messrs.  Delafield  and 
Gye.  "Bones,"  boxes,  and  general  admissions  were  to 
be  had  for  the  asking  at  Her  Majesty's,  until  the  appear- 
ance— long  heralded  and  eagerly  expected — of  Mile.  Jenny 
Liiid,  in  the  early  days  of  May,  had  an  immediate  effect  in 
not  merely  restoring  the  failing  fortunes  of  the  theatre,  but 
brought  with  it  an  amount  of  pecuniary  success  hitherto 
unknown. 

I  do  not  know  how  I  could  have  received  a  hint  of  the 
importance  of  that  debut,  for  I  certainly  was  not  in  any 
musical  circle — I  suppose  I  derived  my  impression  from 
the  general  talk  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  be  present  on  the  night  when  Mile.  Jenny  Lind 
should  make  her  first  bow  to  the  English  public,  and 
equally  certain  that  I  carried  out  my  intention.  Every 
retainable  seat  had  been  retained  for  weeks ;  that  made 
no  difference  to  me — even  a  place  in  the  pit  was  beyond 
my  small  means  ;  but  I  was  young  and  strong  and  active, 
and  at  a  few  minutes  before  noon  on  Tuesday,  the  4th 
May,  I  took  my  place  among  twenty  persons  then  gathered 
round  the  gallery-door  of  the  opera-house  in  the  Hay- 
market. 

The  twenty  soon  swelled  into  two  hundred,  into  five 
hundred,  into  uncountable  numbers  ;  and  there  Ave  stood, 
swaying  hither  and  thither,  joking,  chaffing,  panting, 
groaning,  until  the  doors  Avere  opened  at  7  p.m.,  and  away 
we  went  with  a  rush.  I  had  brought  some  sandwiches 
and  a  pocket-flask  with  me,  and  was  in  good  condition 
luckily  ;  for  anything  like  that  crowd  I  have  never  ex- 
perienced. There  were  women  among  us,  and  just  as  I 
neared  the  door  I  heard  a  feeble  Avhisper  in  my  ear,  "  For 
God's  sake,  help  me  !  I'm  fainting  !"  I  could  not  move 
my  arms,  which  Avere  pinioned  to  my  sides,  but  I  turned 
my  head  as  best  I  could,  and  said,  "Catch  hold  of  me, 
and  I'll  pull  you  up."     The  Avoman — I  never  saw  her  face 


116  FIFTY  TEARR   OF   LONDON  LIFE. 

— put  her  arms  inund  my  T^-aist — I  had  a  waist  in  those 
days — and  thus  hurdened  I  struggled  on.  I  reached  and 
mounted  the  staircase ;  I  put  my  hand,  with  the  exact 
admission  -  money  in  it,  into  the  hole  in  the  pay  box, 
whence  at  first  it  was  swept  out,  with  a  score  other 
hands,  by  the  maddened  money-taker ;  but  I  succeeded  : 
I  got  my  pass-check,  and,  still  burdened,  I  fought  to  the 
top  of  the  staircase,  where  my  check  was  demanded.  It 
was  then  discovered  that  my  unfortunate  passenger  had 
not  paid  her  money,  and  had  received  no  check.  She 
released  me  ;  she  vras  refused  admittance,  and  was  literally 
carried  off  on  the  human  tide.  I  heard  no  more  of  her. 
When  I  reached  ray  goal — the  third  row  in  the  gallery — 
I  sat  down  there,  perspiring  and  exhausted,  and  follow- 
ing the  example  of  all  round  mo  I  took  off  my  coat.  The 
first  notes  of  the  overture  to  "Robert  le  Diable  "  found 
the  gallery  in  its  shirt-sleeves ;  but  we  were  clothed  and 
in  our  right  minds  before  the  opera  began. 

The  next  time  I  heard  Mile.  Lind  was  from  the  same 
coign  of  vantage,  about  a  month  later,  on  her  first  appear- 
ance in  "  Norma,"  and  as  this  performance  was  attended 
by  the  Queen  in  state,  I  had  equal  difficulty  in  getting  in. 
This  was  the  first  pageant  I  had  ever  beheld,  and  I  per- 
fectly remember  the  gorgeous  appearance  of  the  Royal 
box,  with  the  13eef-eatcrs  on  the  stage  below.  The  per- 
formance itself  was  unquestionably  a  failure :  the  ad- 
herents of  the  theatre  tried  to  talk  about  a  "  new  read- 
ing "  of  the  character  of  the  Druidical  priestess  ;  but  the 
public  would  have  none  of  it ;  and  it  Avas  generally  al- 
lowed that  Grisi's  Norma  remained  untouched. 

Of  Mile.  Jenny  Lind's  extraordinary  and  unequalled  suc- 
cess here  and  in  America,  of  her  quarrel  with  Mr.  Uunn, 
of  her  domestic  virtues  and  social  triimiphs,  there  is  no 
need  to  say  more  in  these  pages.  She  had  two  admirable 
supporters  in  the  sweet-voiced  Gardoni  and  the  s})U'ndid 
Lablaclie  ;  but,  with  two  exceplions,  the  operatic  troui)e 
was  weak.  It  was  to  his  ballet  that  INIr.  Lumley  looked 
for  liis  ])rincipal  attraction,  independently  of  Jenny  Lind. 

And  well  he  might;  for  surely  neither  before  nor  since 
was  that  style  of  entertainment  brought  to  such  a  pitch 


THE   DRAMA   LV   THOSE   DAYS.  117 

of  perfection.  I  liavc  seen  the  famous  pas  de  quatre 
danced  by  Taglioni,  Cerito,  Carlotta  Grisi,  and  Lucille 
Grahn,  the  last  one  of  the  tallest  of  women,  but  extraor- 
dinarily graceful.  I  have  seen  more  than  a  score  of  times 
— for  it  was  my  favorite  ballet — "  Esmeralda,"  with  Car- 
lotta Grisi,  bright,  audacious,  supple,  and  piquante  to  a 
degree,  with  Perrot — a  little,  ugly,  pock-marked  man,  but 
a  marvellous  pantomimist  —  as  Pierre  Gringoire.  The 
witchery  of  a  'pas  called  "  La  Truandaise,"  as  danced  by 
this  couple,  is  quite  inexpressible.  Mile.  Plunkett,  sister 
of  Madame  Doche,  the  French  actress,  was  also  a  famous 
dancer  of  those  days. 

This  was  the  first  season  of  the  Royal  Italian  Opera 
House,  into  which  old  Covent  Garden  Theatre  had  been 
metamorphosed,  and  the  rivalry  between  it  and  the  lyric 
establishment  in  the  Haymarket  was  intense.  It  may  be 
said  generally  that  Her  Majesty's  was  supported  by  the 
older,  the  Royal  Italian  by  the  younger,  section  of  opera- 
goers;  and  I  remember  it  was  the  fashion  of  the  younger 
men  to  wear,  in  evening  dress,  black  ties,  in  contrast  to 
the  large  double  -  folded  white  cravats  which  were  de 
rigueur  at  the  Haymarket  house.*  What  productions 
were  those  under  Costa's  hdton,  and  with  the  executants 
whom  he  had  lured  from  their  old  allegiance  !  So  long  as 
I  live  I  shall,  T  suppose,  remember  my  first  experience  of 
"  Lucrezia  Borgia,"  with  Grisi's  entrance  on  the  gondola, 
the  sleeping  Mario,  the  "  Com'  e  bello,"  the  trio  between 
these  two  and  Tamburini,  Orsini's  drinking-song  as  inter- 
preted by  Alboni,  and  the  horror  of  the  finale.  What  a 
company  !     In  addition  to  these,  Madame  Persiani,  Sign- 


*  As  I  was  revising  this  chapter  in  proof  I  received  a  letter  from  Cap- 
tain Dawson  Darner,  who  says  :  "  I  have  lost  an  old  friend  in  Ilayward.  I 
only  heard  from  him  a  short  time  ago  ;  it  was  in  regard  to  '  white  ties.' 
I  asked  him  when  they  came  into  fashion.  He  replied,  '  One  night,  about 
1850  (?),  about  the  very  last  night  of  Vauxhall,  the  elder  Miss  Berry,  aged 
eighty-five,  Horace  Walpole's  flame,  asked  me  to  escort  her  there,  and  she 
suddenly,  on  entering  the  Gardens,  looked  at  my  white  tie,  and  she  said  to 
me,  "The  last  time  I  was  here  I  came  with  Beau  Brummell,  who  wore  a 
white  neck-cloth  for  the  first  time  ;  and  it  attracted  much  notice,  and  ther^ 
rose  an  inquiry  whether  B.  B.  had  taken  orders." ' " 


118  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

or  Ronoo»i,  Tagliafico  ;  later  on,  Formes,  whom  I  recol- 
lect as  sexton  at  Miililheim  am  Ruhr,  not  far  from  Dus- 
seldorf,  Madame  Dorus  Gras,  Miss  Catherine  Hayes,  M. 
Massol,  Mile,  Angri,  and  Mile,  de  Meric.  The  London 
•world  went  quite  mad  over  the  production  of  "Les  Hu- 
guenots," almost  as  mad  over  the  production  of  "  Le  Pro- 
phete,"  in  which,  by-the-way,  roller-skating  was  first  in- 
troduced. 

At  Drury  Lane,  in  my  boyish  days,  English  opera, 
composed  by  Balfe  or  Wallace  and  written  by  Alfred 
Bunn,  had  been  the  great  attraction,  and  often  had  I 
listened  to  Miss  Romer's  narration  of  her  dream  of  dwell- 
ing in  marble  halls,  Miss  Rainforth's  charming  contralto, 
Mr,  Harrison's  reedy  tenoi-,  and  Mr,  Borrani's  {tie  Borri- 
gan)  nasal  barytone,  his  songs,  "The  heart  bowed  dowd  " 
and  "  Hear  be,  gentle  Baritada,"  being  favorite  subjects 
of  imitation  among  the  musical  young  men.  But  at  the 
time  of  which  I  write,  Drury  Lane  was  almost  wholly 
given  up  to  the  great  Jullien,  whose  promenade  concerts 
were  by  far  the  greatest  success  of  their  day  :  a  little 
man,  with  a  pale  face  and  bright,  beady  eyes,  always  at 
night  elaborately  dressed,  with  a  worked  shirt-front  and 
huge  white  waistcoat  and  turned -back  cuffs.  He  had 
been,  according  to  some,  a  waiter  at  a  cafe,  according  to 
others,  a  bandsman  in  a  regiment ;  but  all  Avere  agreed 
that  he  was  a  charlatan,  7Viat  was  visible  to  every  naked 
eye  in  his  puffs  and  programmes,  in  his  posters  and  ad- 
vertising vans,  in  the  manner  in  which  he  led  his  musi- 
cians— dancing  a-tiptoe,  softly  soothing,  with  outstretched 
pahn,  wildly  exciting  with  whirling  bdton,  driving  to  fury 
with  maniacal  gesticulation,  then,  spent  and  exhausted, 
falling  back,  panting  and  breathless,  into  his  gilded  chair. 

He  was  a  charlatan,  I  will  admit;  but  as  a  man — I  knew 
him  well — he  was  kinclly,  cheery,  generous,  and  loyal,  and 
as  a  musician  he  was  perliaj)R  the  greatest  benefactor  this 
country  has  ever  had;  for  lo  him,  more  than  to  any  one 
else,  is  to  be  ascribed  tlie  popularizing  of  music  among 
the  English  people.  To  tliis  end  he  got  together  a  splen- 
did band  —  which,  for  niimbers  and  excellence,  at  that 
time  had  never  been  e(iualle(l,  and  since  has  never  been 


THE   DRAMA   IN   THOSE   DAYS.  119 

excelled — wherein  Koenig  played  the  cornet,  Richardson 
the  flute,  Lazarus  the  clarionet,  Baumann  the  oboe,  and 
Prospere  the  ophicleide  ;  engaged  solo  singers,  foremost 
among  tl\em  being  Mile.  Jetty  Treffz,  whose  ballad, 
"Trab,  trab,"  created  a/wrore,  and  Miss  Dolby;  solo  in- 
strumentalists like  Sivori  and  Vieuxtemps.  Jullien's  own 
polkas  and  valses  —  the  "Olga"  and  the  "Bridal,"  the 
"  Row  "  and  "  Drum  "  polkas,  the  "  British  Army  Qua- 
drilles " — and  Koenig's  "  Post-horn  Galop  "  were  common- 
place enough,  no  doubt,  but  they  took  the  taste  of  the 
town.  HappeMt  venait  en  manfjcant;  and  when  the  pub- 
lic was  ready  for  it,  Jullien  provided,  from  time  to  time, 
a  better  kind  of  musical  pal)ulum. 

The  regular  annual  series  of  concerts  was  invariably 
wound  up  by  a  hal  masque,  which  was  conducted  with 
more  spirit  than  is  usually  to  be  found  in  England  in 
cmincction  with  such  an  affair.  One  of  the  principal  pro- 
moters of  fun  was  Horace  Mayliew,  who,  dressed  in  a 
Robespierre  garb,  and  accompanied  by  some  of  his  broth- 
ers, and  a  select  band  of  followers,  pervaded  the  salle. 
His  English  chaff  and  French  hacUnage  were  equally  flu- 
ent and  excellent,  full  of  fun,  without  the  least  coarseness, 
and  his  presence  was  a  looked-for  and  welcome  feature 
of  the  entertainment.  Hitherto  masquerades  in  England 
had  been  very  ghastly  gatherings  :  the  solemn  Charles 
the  Seconds,  Spanish  noblemen,  Leporellos,  knights  in  ar- 
mor, friars,  and  bewigged  barristers  had  been  supplement- 
ed by  a  would-be  comic  crew  of  clowns,  pantaloons,  and 
"romps" — young  females  in  short  petticoats,  with  hoops 
or  skipping-ropes,  with  which  they  belabored  the  by- 
standers. "Under  Jullien's  regime — or  rather  under  Mr. 
F.  Gye's,  for  the  arrangements  were  under  the  superin- 
tendence of  that  gentleman — all  these  objectionable  char- 
acters were  excluded,  and  the  bed  vnasque  became  so  much 
of  an  institution  as  to  be  described  in  all  its  ramifications 
in  a  very  smartly  written  shilling  book,  in  that  style  of 
which  "The  Gent"  was  the  precursor,  professedly  written 
by  "  the  Count  Chicard,"  but  really,  I  imagine,  the  work 
of  Horace  Mayhew. 

In  the  year  1847,  however,  M.  Jullien  undertook  for 


120  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

himself  at  Drury  Lane  a  far  more  ambitious  task — noth- 
ing less  than  the  production  of  operas  in  English,  on  a 
far  more  complete  scale  tlian  had  been  yet  attempted, 
and  supported  by  artist?  hitherto  unkno'wn  to  the  English 
public.  In  the  beginning  of  December  he  carried  his 
project  into  effect  with  infinite  spirit.  His  band,  under 
the  direction  of  the  famous  Hector  Berlioz,  was  excellent, 
and  the  chorus,  probably  the  largest  and  the  most  com- 
plete ever  heard  in  an  English  theatre,  was  admirably 
disciplined  and  under  perfect  control.  The  first  produc- 
tion was  "Lucia  di  Lammermoor,"  and  the  next  day  the 
town  was  ringing  with  the  praises  of  the  new  tenor,  Mr. 
Sims  Reeves,  who  had  proved  himself  more  than  worthy 
of  the  great  expectations  which  had  been  raised  concern- 
ing him.  I  perfectly  recollect  the  tumultuous  roars  of 
applause  evoked  by  his  great  scene  at  the  end  of  the  sec- 
ond act,  and  have  a  remembrance  of  roars  of  another 
kind,  occasioned  by  the  very  comic  manner  in  which, 
under  the  influence  of  great  excitement,  he  persisted  in 
shaking  his  head.  His  "  Fra  poco  " — rendered,  I  remem- 
ber, "  From  these  fond  arms  they  tore  thee  " — was  enor- 
mously effective ;  and  when  the  curtain  fell,  Mr.  Sims 
Reeves  was  enrolled  as  a  first  favorite  with  the  public, 
which  for  more  than  thirty-five  years  lias  never  deserted 
him.  Another  successful  debut  of  that  night  was  that  of 
Mr.  "NVhitworth  as  Colonel  Ashton  —  a  handsome  man, 
whom  I  see  about  London  to  this  day.  I  am  afraid  that 
the  poor  Mons.,  as  Ihmch  used  to  call  him,  from  the  way 
he  always  heralded  himself  on  his  posters,  "Mons.  Jul- 
lien,"  came  to  financial  grief  over  his  English  opera  ex- 
periment. It  did  not,  if  I  remember  rightly,  last  very 
long,  though  during  its  course  he  produced  without  much 
.'jucccsa  a  new  opera  of  his  own  composition  called  "  Peter 
the  Great,"  as  well  as  various  standard  works. 

And  then  Drury  Lane  fell  back  into  buing  a  home  for 
any  kind  of  entertaiinnent,  no  matter  wliat.  In  a  very 
smartly  written  brochure,  Charles  Mathews  once  called  it 
a  huge  theatrical  omnibus  ;  and  so  it  was.  What  have  I 
seen  and  heard  within  its  walls  ?  Franconi's  circus  troupe, 
with  Caroline  and  Malhilde  in  the  haute  ecole,  and  the  fas- 


THE   DRAMA  IN  THOSE  DAYS.  121 

cinating  Palmyre  Anato  in  the  "  leap  of  streamers,"  which 
used  to  draw  all  the  youth  of  London  ;  German  opera, 
with  Pischek  ;  James  Anderson's  regime;  Shakspeare, 
with  the  manager,  Vandenhoff,  and  lovely  Miss  Laura 
Addison ;  "  Azael  the  Prodigal,"  a  tolerably  close  version 
of  the  Scripture  story,  in  which  John  Cooper  played  a  high- 
priest  with  much  pompous  unction;  and  "Ligomar" — 
Mr.  James  Anderson,  a  manly  and  vigorous  actor,  one  of 
Macready's  favorite  lieutenants,  being  still  alive,  a  hale 
and  hearty  gentleman. 

Charles  Mathews  himself,  all  his  delicate  finesse  and 
admirable  by-play  swallowed  up  in  the  enormous  stage, 
played  engagements  here  under  the  management  of  Mr, 
E.  T.  Smith — a  strange  person,  said  to  have  been  origi- 
nally a  policeman,  a  shrewd,  uneducated,  good-natured 
vulgarian,  of  a  dreadful  back-slapping.  Christian -name 
calling  familiarity,  who  in  his  time  entered  on  theatrical 
lesseeship  on  a  large  and  varied  scale.  The  days  when 
Halliday  was  the  stock  author  of  the  house,  the  produc- 
tion of  "  The  Great  City,"  partly  plagiarized  from  "  Great 
Expectations;"  "Amy  Robsart,"  and  dramatic  versions  of 
the  Waverley  novels,  in  which  the  lovely  Adelaide  Neil- 
son  was  the  great  attraction  ;  successive  seasons  of  Italian 
opera  ;  the  Chatterton  dynasty ;  and  finally,  after  the 
"  marvellous  boy  "  had  "perished  in  his  pride,"  the  advent 
of  Mr.  Augustus  Harris,  who  seems  to  be  more  capable  or 
more  fortunate  than  any  of  his  predecessors. 

I  forgot  to  mention  the  great  "  Monte  Cristo  "  row, 
which  occurred  at  Drury  Lane  in  the  summer  of  1848,  and 
at  which  I  was  present.  The  troupe  of  the  Theatre  His- 
torique  from  Paris  was  announced  for  a  short  series  of 
l^erformances,  but  on  the  opening  night  a  band  of  oppo- 
nents took  possession  of  the  pit,  and  prevented  a  syllable 
being  heard  throughout  the  evening.  The  riot  was  re- 
newed the  next  night,  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  mal- 
contents being  arrested  proved  to  be  Sam  Cowell,  an 
actor  and  comic  singer  already  mentioned.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  free  fighting,  and  as  one  of  the  incidents  I 
remember  a  huge  strawberry  pottle  being  hurled  at  Albert 
Smith,  who  had  just  issued  a  sixpenny  book  called  "A 

6 


122  FIFTY  TEAKS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

Pottle  of  Strawberries,"  and  who  was  conspicuously  active 
on  the  side  of  the  Frenchmen. 

My  experience  of  good  acting  and  sound  English  com- 
edy is  more  due  to  the  Haymarket  than  to  any  other  the- 
atre. As  a  boy  I  had  seen  there  "  London  Assurance," 
"  Old  Heads  and  Young  Hearts,"  "  Time  Works  Won- 
ders," "  Bubbles  of  the  Day,"  and  "  Money,"  j^layed  by 
old  William  Farren,  Strickland,  David  Rees,  James  Vin- 
ing,  Walter  Lacy,  Webster,  Charles  Mathews,  Harley, 
James  Anderson,  and  Macready ;  Mrs.  Glover,  Mrs.  Nis- 
bett,  Miss  P.  Horton,  and  Madame  Vestris.  On  my  re- 
turn to  England  in  1847,  Mr.  Webster,  the  lessee,  very 
kindly  placed  my  name  on  his  free  list,  and  for  years  I 
went  to  his  theatre  once  or  twice  a  week.  Not  to  the 
dress-circle,  though  ;  there  was  no  entrance-money  to  be 
paid,  but  for  a  seat  in  the  dress  or  upper  circle  I  should 
have  had  to  tip  a  box-keeper,  and  I  could  not  afford  that. 
So  I  used  to  scurry  up  the  stairs  to  the  "slips,"  in  those 
days  a  row  of  seats  on  either  side  the  house  on  the  gallery 
level,  and  from  the  slips  of  the  old  Haymarket  Theatre, 
before  the  Bancroft  renovation,  I  have  seen  some  of  the 
finest  acting  of  my  day. 

Comedies,  for  instance:  Mrs.  Nisbett  as  Constance  in 
"The  Love  Chase,"  with  Webster  as  Wildrake,  and  Mrs. 
Glover  as  Widow  Green.  This  Avas  on  the  occasion  of 
Mrs.  Nisbett's  return  to  the  stage,  after  the  death  of  her 
second  husband.  Sir  William  Boothby.  She  was  a  very 
lovely  woman  of  the  ripe-poacli  style,  large  eyes  and  pout- 
ing lips.  One  night,  about  tliis  time,  I  went  behind  the 
scenes  and  was  presented  to  her  by  my  mother,  "  Lady 
Boothby,  this  is  ray  boy  !"  "  How  wonderfully  like  his 
father  !"  and  her  ladyship  inclined  her  lovely  face  and 
gave  me  a  kiss.  "Lucky  fellow,"  said  Webster,  who  was 
standing  by;  "you'll  remember  in  after-years  that  you've 
kissed  Mrs.  Nisbetl!"  "I've  forgotten  it  already,"  I  said, 
lifting  up  my  face  for  a  reminder.  Mrs.  Nisbett  laughed 
and  acceded;  and  Webster,  turning  to  her  so  that  my 
mother  could  not  hear,  muttered,  "  Ver]/  like  his  father." 

There  I  first  saw  Charles  Keaji  in  "The  Wife's  Secret," 
one  of  the  best  acting  plays  ul"  niodcrn  days,  with  Web- 


THE   DRAMA   IN  THOSE   DAYS.  123 

ster  as  the  steward  and  Mrs.  Keoley  as  the  waiting-maid; 
in  a  most  preposterous  piece  called  "  Leap  Year,"  in  which 
Kean,  the  hero,  to  win  his  love,  disguised  himself  as  a 
footman  in  livery,  and  spouted  Coleridge's  "Genevieve;" 
and  in  Shakspeare.  "Webster,  the  manager,  was  the  hero 
of  "The  Roused  Lion,"  in  which  a  beau  of  the  old  school, 
roused  into  competition  with  a  coxcomb  of  the  new,  ex- 
hibits in  every  point  his  superiority  ;  of  "Lavater  ;"  and 
of  "The  Serious  Family,"  a  rendering  of  "Le  Mari  a  la 
Campagne,"  which  afterwards  served  Mr.  Burnand  as  the 
groundwork  of  his  ''  Colonel."  The  wife,  in  this  piece, 
was  played  by  Miss  Reynolds,  one  of  the  most  delightful 
actresses  of  our  time,  whether  in  comedy  or,  teste  "  The 
Invisible  Prince,"  in  burlesque. 

The  Irish  Major  in  "  The  Serious  Family  "  was  the  fa- 
mous James  Wallack,  in  his  day  untouchable  as  a  roman- 
tic actor,  handsome,  gallant,  dashing,  almost  an  English 
Fechter,  without  the  fascinating  earnestness  in  love-mak- 
ing, but  with  a  strong  dash  of  humor,  which  Fechter,  on 
the  stage,  never  showed.  Wallack's  Don  Cnesar  do  Bazan 
was  a  splendid  performance,  so  was  his  Brigand,  and  his 
Rover  in  "  Wild  Oats."  I  have  seen  him  attempt  Othello 
with  but  a  small  amount  of  success,  but  he  was  a  fair 
lago  and  a  most  admirable  Benedick. 

Then  there  were  the  delightful  Keeleys,  with  their 
combined  efforts  in  such  farces  as  "Dearest  Elizabeth" 
and  the  "  Pas  de  Fascination,"  and  Keeley's  stolid  comi- 
cality in  such  burlesques  as  "  The  Sphinx  "  and  "  Cama- 
ralzaman,"  in  which  he  had  the  assistance  of  Miss  Reyn- 
olds's sweet  voice  and  charming  presence,  and  Mr.  James 
Bland's  magnificent  pomposity.  An  actor  of  Irish  char- 
acters named  Hudson,  gentlemanly,  but  of  somewhat  thin 
humor,  was  a  light  of  the  Ilaymarket  in  those  days. 

My  earliest  recollection  of  the  Lyceum  is  under  the 
management  of  the  Keeleys,  when  with  their  daughter, 
Miss  Mary  Keeley,  Miss  Louisa  Fairbrother  (Mrs.  Fitz- 
george).  Miss  Woolgar,  Messrs.  Emery,  Wigan,  Frank 
Matthews,  Leigh  Murray,  Oxberry,  and  Collier.  Those 
were  the  days  of  the  dramatization  of  Dickens's  books  : 
"Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  with  Keeley  as  Mrs,  Gamj),  and  his 


124  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

wife  as  Bailey,  F.  Matthews  a  wonderful  Pecksniff,  Emery 
an  excellent  Jonas ;  "  The  Cricket  on  the  Hearth,"  with 
Mrs.  Keeley  as  Dot,  Keeley  as  Caleb  Plummer,  Emery 
as  Peerybingle,  and  Mary  Keeley 's  debid  as  Bertha ;  of 
the  sparkling  burlesques  concocted  by  Albert  Smith  and 
Tom  Taylor,  while  Charles  Kenney  would  sit  by  and  oc- 
casionally throw  in  a  joke  or  a  suggestion  ;  "  Aladdin," 
where  Keeley  played  the  magician,  and  imparted  such 
peculiar  emphasis  to  the  line,  "Yes  !  here's  the  place,  and 
there's  the  blasted  cedar  !"  as  to  bring  down  the  house  ; 
"Ali  Baba,"  with  Miss  Fairbrother  as  the  leader  of  the 
Forty  Thieves  ;  "  Valentine  and  Orson,"  Mrs.  Keeley  as 
the  Knight,  her  husband  the  Wild  Man  ;  and  others. 
Shirley  Brooks  won  his  dramatic  spurs  here  with  an  ex- 
cellent melodrama,  "  The  Creole  " — the  hero  finely  played 
by  Emery,  a  most  excellent  actor,  never  sufficiently  ap- 
preciated— and  a  novel  and  sparkling  farce,  "The  Wig- 
wam." 

When  my  regular  play-going  days  began,  the  Lyceum 
had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Charles  Mathews  and  Ma- 
dame Vestris,  who  had  a  brilliant  reign  there.  Their  open- 
ing pieces  fell  flat,  but  within  a  few  weeks  two  new  farces 
w^ere  produced  which  filled  the  house  and  have  proved 
perennial  favorites:  they  were  "Box  and  Cox"  and  "The 
Rough  Diamond."  Buckstone  and  Harley  were  the  orig- 
inal printer  and  hatter;  but  though  every  comedian  for 
the  last  thirty-five  years  has  played  the  farce,  I  have  never 
seen  so  thoroughly  artistic  a  conception  of  Box  as  (hat 
of  Charles  Mathews,  who  took  the  part  wlien  TIarley 
left  the  theatre.  Mrs.  Fitzwilliam's  Margery,  in  "The 
Rough  Diamond,"  has  never  been  surpassed.  Shirley 
Brooks  was  also  successful  here  with  a  smart  one  -  act 
comedy  called  "Anything  for  a  Change,"  with  Charles 
Matliews  and  a  Miss  "Polly"  Marshall,  who  played  a 
servant -girl  inimitably.  And  wlion  my  mother  joined 
the  company  in  1H48  there  was  a  capital  revival  of  "The 
Critic,"  with  lier  as  'I'ilbnrina,  diaries  Mathews,  Frank 
Matthews,  Sclby,  Roxby,  and  V.  Cooke. 

A  farce  called  "An  Apj»eal  to  tlie  Public"  was  mem- 
orable to  me,  as  in  it  I  made  my  first  ai)i)earance  on  any 


THE   DRAMA   IN  THOSE  DAYS.  125 

stage,  A  crowd  was  gathered  under  an  archway  in  sup- 
posed shelter  from  rain :  one  night  I  "  went  on "  and 
stood  among  the  people  ;  hut  Charles  Mathews  spying 
me,  rushed  up,  exclaiming,  "  What !  young  Mr.  Yates  !" 
dragged  me  to  the  footlights,  hoped  I  had  not  got  wet, 
and  dismissed  me.  This  was  tlie  time  when  Planche, 
stanchest  suj^porter  of  Madame  Vestris,  and  founder  of  her 
fortunes  in  her  early  managerial  career  at  the  Olympic, 
again  came  to  her  help,  and  produced  a  series  of  extrava- 
ganzas, the  most  noteworthy  of  which  were  "The  King  of 
the  Peacocks"  and  "The  Island  of  Jewels."  These,  with 
the  scenery  painted  by  William  Beverly,  then  new  to 
London  and  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power,  and  admirably 
acted,  proved  highly  atti'active.  They  served  to  intro- 
duce two  young  actresses  to  the  London  stage — Miss  Julia 
St.  George  and  Miss  Kathleen  Fitzwilliara.  Both  were 
successful,  but  Miss  Fitzwilliam,  daughter  of  an  old  pub- 
lic favorite,  achieved  quite  an  extraordinary  success  by 
her  charming  manner  and  most  effective  singing;  she  cer- 
tainly did  not  "lag  superfluous,"  as  in  the  height  of  her 
triumph  she  married,  and  retired  from  the  boards. 

These,  too,  were  the  times  of  Charles  Mathews's  great- 
est successes :  "  The  Day  of  Reckoning,"  in  which  he  for 
the  first  time  attempted  a  serious  character,  the  second 
being  when  he  played  in  the  dramatized  version  of  my 
novel,  "  Black  Sheep  ;"  Blanchard  Jerrold's  admirable 
piece,  "Cool  as  a  Cucumber,"  which,  done  into  French, 
as  "L'Anglais  Timide,"  was  afterwards  played  by  Math- 
ews in  Paris;  and,  best  of  all,  "The  Game  of  Specula- 
tion," adapted  by  G.  H.  Lewes,  under  the  name  of  Slings- 
by  Laurence,  from  "Mercadet,"  possibly  the  most  suitable 
character  ever  written  for  Charles  Mathews,  and  in  the 
acting  of  which  he  absolutely  revelled.  Much  was  ex- 
pected from  a  drama  which  followed,  "  The  Chain  of 
Events ;"  but  it  was  not  successful,  proving,  as  Douglas 
Jerrold  said  of  it,  "a  door-chain,  to  keep  people  out  of 
the  house  !" 

The  Princess's,  at  the  time  when  I  first  knew  it,  and  for 
many  years  after,  was  under  the  management  of  a  Hebrew 
gentleman,  whose  name  appeared  at  the  head  of  his  play- 


126  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

bills  as  J.  M.  Maddox,  and  whose  short,  stout  figure  and 
very  marked  features,  with  a  cigar  always  protruding 
from  under  his  prominent  nose,  was  a  constant  source  of 
delight  to  the  caricaturists.  His  real  cognomen  was,  I 
imagine,  Medcx — at  least  that  was  the  name  painted  over 
a  tobacconist's  shop  immediately  facing  the  theatre,  which 
was  avowedly  kept  by  the  lessee's  brother,  and  there, 
seated  on  a  tub  or  lounging  against  the  counter,  Mr.  Mad- 
dox was  constantly  to  be  found.  And  not  merely  to  the 
caricaturist,  but  to  the  anecdote-monger,  was  the  Hebrew 
imjjresario  of  much  service.  Stories  of  his  meanness, 
his  avarice,  his  wonderful  fertility  of  resource  in  saving 
money  and  reducing  the  proper  prices  of  labor,  were  rife 
in  theatrical  circles.  Among  other  things,  it  was  said 
that  all  the  lighter  pieces  produced  at  the  Princess's  were 
the  work  of  a  jobbing  author,  who  was  kept  on  the  prem- 
ises— some  said  chained  by  the  leg  to  his  desk — who  for  a 
salary  of  a  few  shillings  was  compelled  to  produce  two 
French  translations  Aveekly.  Some  of  the  stories  were 
introduced  by  Albert  Smith  into  one  of  his  novels,  in 
which  Maddox  figured;  and  the  manager  took  his  revenge 
by  getting  the  jobbing  author  to  write  a  parody,  satirizing 
his  assailant  as  "The  Fine  Young  Modern  Dramatist." 
It  was  rather  smartly  done,  as  may  be  judged  from  the 
one  verse  which  lives  in  my  memory: 

"  '  Alliata'  Smith  they've  christened  him,  for  wicked  wags  have  said 
That  as  Aibata  now  is  used  for  silver  plate  instead, 
So  he  has  stolen  the  genuine  wit  that's  found  in  Dickens's  bead, 
And  for  it  substituted  his  own  literary  lead — 

Like  a  fine  young  modern  dramatist, 

All  of  the  present  time." 

All  were  theatrical  fish  that  came  to  Mr.  Maddox's  net: 
opera,  farce,  tragedy,  comedy,  ballet,  and  pantomime,  lie 
tried  them  all.  On  my  earliest  visit  to  the  Princess's  I 
saw  a  little  opera  called  "The  15arcarole,"  with  a  very 
sweet  tenor  named  Allen,  a  well-known  barytone,  Leifler, 
and  a  man  named  Walton,  whom  I  have  never  heard  of 
since,  but  who  remains  in  my  memory  from  an  odd  trick 
of  twiddling  his  thumbs,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  re- 


THE  DRAMA  IN  THOSE  DAYS.  127 

peated  a  name,  "Cafferini."  I  saw  soon  after,  Mrs,  But- 
ler, now  known  as  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble,  as  Julia  in  "  The 
Hunchback,"  and  conceived,  rightly  or  wrongly,  a  holy 
horror  of  her  deep-voiced  mouthings.  She  had,  in  par- 
ticular, a  manner  of  saying  "  Oh  !"  drawing  the  word  out 
to  an  enormous  length,  which  was  a  fertile  source  of  amuse- 
ment and  imitation  to  ribald  young  men.  Here,  too,  I 
had  my  one  remembered  experience  of  Macready — I  know 
my  father  took  me  as  a  child  to  Covent  Garden  to  see 
"Macbeth,"  but  that  is  wholly  indistinct  —  as  Othello, 
but  I  was  not  much  impressed.  Miss  Cushman,  whom  I 
was  to  meet  twenty-five  years  later  in  America,  was  the 
Emilia,  and  every  one  was  talking  of  the  extraordinary 
resemblance  in  face,  voice,  and  manner  between  the  two. 
Mr.  Maddox  relied  greatly  on  the  attraction  of  operas  in 
English,  and  brought  out  several  stars  of  a  certain  magni- 
tude. A  Mile.  Nau  was  the  first  prima  donna  of  my 
recollection;  but  there  were  also  the  charming  Madame 
Anna  Thillon,  whose  performance  in  the  "Crown  Dia- 
monds" created  a.  furore  about  this  time,  and  young  Miss 
Louisa  Pyne,  then  a  debutante.  Mr.  Harrison,  afterwards 
to  be  associated  with  her  in  operatic  management,  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Weiss  were  stars  among  the  company. 
Charles  Mathews  and  his  wife,  Keeley  and  his  wife,  and 
Alfred  Wigan  were  occasional  visitors  in  those  times  to 
the  Princess's,  which,  for  its  pantomime  season,  had  the 
advantage  of  an  extremely  agile  —  but  to  me  wholly  un- 
humorous  —  clown,  named  Flexmore,  who,  with  his  wife, 
Mile,  Auriol,  daughter  of  another  famous  clown,  proved 
highly  attractive. 

And  here,  too,  under  the  Maddox  regime,  was  a  very 
strange  man,  Charles  Kerrison  Sala,  brother  of  the  author, 
largely  endowed  with  the  family  talent,  and  with  more 
than  an  average  supply  of  the  family  eccentricity.  One 
of  his  peculiarities,  and  one  which  he  carried  out  with  the 
strictest  rigor,  was  never  to  be  seen  in  public  without  a 
flower  in  his  button-hole  ;  winter  or  summer,  night  or 
day,  there  was  the  flower,  valuable  or  valueless,  but  al- 
ways present.  To  the  general  public  he  was  little  known, 
though,  under  his  theatrical  name  of  Wynn,  he  achieved 


128  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

a  certain  amount  of  success  at  the  Princess's  ;  but  his 
quaint  fancy  and  keen  perception  of  the  ludicrous  were 
highly  esteemed  by  his  friends.  He  wrote  a  queer  ram- 
bling poem  called  "  The  Fish,"  which  was  full  of  spark- 
ling incongruity.  But  it  is  as  the  hero  of  two  or  three 
stock  satirical  anecdotes  that  his  memory  will  probably 
survive.  One  of  these  may  be  narrated.  For  some  rea- 
son or  other,  Sala  (Wynn)  was  most  objectionable  to  Mac- 
ready.  Possibly  want  of  reverence  had  something  to  do 
with  the  feeling  ;  but  the  fact  was  that  the  great  trage- 
dian detested  the  eccentric  actor.  When  at  rehearsals 
Wynn  appeared  on  the  stage,  Macready's  eyes  were  tiglit- 
ly  closed  until  he  disappeared,  when  he  would  ask  the 
prompter,  "  Has  it  gone  ?"  Now  it  happened  that  on  the 
revival  of  Shakspeare's  "Henry  VIH.,"  with  Macready 
as  Cardinal  Wolsey,  the  part  of  Cardinal  Campeius  was 
allotted  to  Mr.  Wynn.  It  had  been  represented  to  the 
manager  that  Mr.  Macready's  costume  would  be  correct 
and  splendid,  more  especially  as  regards  some  magnificent 
point-lace  which  he  intended  wearing^  and  it  had  been 
suggested  that  something  extra  should  be  done  to  make 
the  other  cardinal  respectable.  But  Mr.  Maddox  thought 
some  old  scarlet  robes  fudged  up  from  the  wardrobe  would 
suffice  ;  and  as  to  point  -  lace,  silver  tissue  -  paper,  deftly 
snipped  and  sewn  on,  would  have  much  the  same  appear- 
ance when  viewed  from  a  distance.  At  the  dress  re- 
hearsal Macready,  enthroned  in  a  chair  of  state,  had  the 
various  characters  to  pass  before  him  ;  lie  bore  all  calmly 
until,  clad  in  the  scarlet  robes  bordered  by  silver  tissue- 
paper,  and  wearing  an  enormous  red  hat,  "Wynn  ap- 
proached. Then,  clutching  both  arms  of  his  cliair  and 
closing  his  eyes,  the  great  tragedian  gasped  out,  "  Mother 

Shipton,  by !" 

Of  course  I  was  on  the  free  list  at  the  Adelphi,  where 
I  not  merely  ha<l  the  right  of  entree,  but  generally  man- 
aged to  get  jiassed  into  one  of  the  small,  low,  private 
boxes  immediately  above  the  orchestra — I  am  speaking 
of  the  old  house — where  my  presence  frequently  produced, 
to  my  intense  delight,  a  more  or  less  a))posite  remark 
from  Wright,  the  low  comedian.      The  low  comedian,  in- 


THE  DRAMA  IN  THOSE  DAYS.  129 

deed,  for  never  have  I  seen  such  a  laughter-compelling 
creature  ;  face,  figure,  manner,  were  irresistible  ;  without 
uttering  a  word  he  would,  across  the  footlights,  give  the 
audience  a  confidential  wink,  and  send  them  into  convul- 
sions. In  words  and  actions  he  was  broad,  sometimes  to 
the  verge  of  indecency,  and  to  this  baseness  he  was  en- 
couraged by  a  large  portion  of  the  audience ;  but  when 
he  chose  there  was  no  more  genuinely  and  legitimately 
comic  artist.  He  was  essentially  an  Adelphi  actor  :  made 
no  mark  before  he  came  there,  subsided  into  nothingness 
after  he  left.  Wright  first  joined  the  Adelphi  company 
in  my  father's  management,  played  Dick  Swiveller  in  the 
"Curiosity  Shop,"  Shotbolt  the  jailer  in  "Jack  Shep- 
pard,"  and  gradually  worked  himself  into  prominence  ; 
but  it  was  not  until  after  my  father's  deatli,  and  under 
Mr.  Webster's  rule,  that  he  assumed  the  position  which 
he  held  so  long.  For  many  years  he  was  the  undoubted 
attraction  to  the  theatre,  and  was  paid  and  treated  ac- 
cordingly. Never  have  I  heard  such  laughter  as  that 
which  he  evoked,  never  have  I  seen  people  so  completely 
collapsed  and  exhausted  by  the  mere  effect  of  their  mirth. 
In  some  of  Wright's  scenes  in  "The  Green  Bushes"  I 
have  fallen  helpless,  spineless,  across  the  front  of  the  box, 
almost  sick  with  laughter.  In  this  drama  and  "  The 
Flowers  of  the  Forest,"  in  his  broad  farces,  "Did  you 
ever  send  your  AVife  to  Camberwell  ?"  "  How  to  Settle 
Accounts  with  your  Laundi-ess,"  and  others  of  that  cali- 
bre, he  was  riotously,  prepostei'ously,  madly  absurd  ;  but 
there  were  other  pieces  I  shall  have  to  speak  of,  wherein 
he  played  with  all  the  subtle  resources  of  which  the  art  is 
capable,  and  where  it  would  have  been  imi^ossible  to  have 
exceeded  the  real  merit  of  his  impersonation. 

Unlike  his  dramatic  rivals,  Keeley  and  Buckstone,  both 
of  whom  were  men  of  natural  smartness  and  cleverness 
enhanced  by  education,  Wi'ight,  save  in  his  profession, 
was  stupid,  coarse,  ignorant,  and  essentially  common;  un- 
doubtedly, too,  he  was  most  at  his  ease  when  the  scene 
admitted  and  the  audience  permitted  his  display  of  his 
coarseness  and  commonness  on  the  stage  ;  but  he  could 
rise  to  great  artistic  heights.     Constantly  associated  with 


130  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LOXDOX   LIFE. 

him  on  the  stage,  half  -  feeder,  half  -  butt,  was  Mr.  Paul 
Bedford,  always  in  my  time  a  big,  jovial,  red-faced,  mel- 
low-voiced, brainless  comedian,  but  whom  my  mother  re- 
membered as  a  good  -  looking  young  man,  a  sweet  tenor 
singer.  Paul  Bedford's  size  and  rotundity,  his  odd  utter- 
ances of  slang  sayings,  his  stolid  imperviousness  to  the  im- 
pertinence with  which  in  the  due  course  of  all  the  dramas 
he  was  assailed  by  Wright,  made  him  a  favorite  with  the 
Adelphi  public,  and  gave  him  a  ralso7i  cVttre.  Had  he 
lived  later  he  would  have  been  well  placed  in  a  music- 
hall,  on  the  platform  or  in  the  chair.  He  had  not  the 
slightest  claim  to  be  considered  an  actor,  played  every 
part  in  exactly  the  same  fashion,  had  not  the  faintest  no- 
tion of  impersonation,  and  was  fundamentally  stupid  and 
ignorant.  But  in  his  earlier  days  he  sang  '' Jolh"  Xose," 
and  in  later  years  he  said  "  I  believe  you,  my  boy  !"  and 
these  accomplishments,  with  his  reputed  jollity,  his  social 
reputation  for  full-flavored  anecdotes,  and  liis  position 
as  Wright's  professional  butt,  carried  him  successfully 
through  a  long  life. 

The  entertainment  provided  at  the  Adelphi  scarcely 
ever  varied  :  it  commenced  at  seven  o'clock  with  a  melo- 
drama in  three  acts,  which  was  over  before  ten,  after 
which  there  were  a  couple  of  farces.  About  nine,  or  as 
soon  after  as  could  be  managed  without  too  much  disturb- 
ing the  performance,  the  "  half-price  "  was  admitted — that 
is  to  say,  a  considerable  reduction  was  accepted  in  the  en- 
trance-fee to  the  boxes  and  pit.  In  small  theatres  the 
half-))rice  was  a  very  important  consideration  to  the  man- 
agement ;  for  money  was  not  so  rife  in  those  days,  and 
there  were  numberless  young  men  who,  while  they  would 
have  been  bored  l)y  spending  the  entire  evening  in  the 
theatre,  and  would  have  grudged  a  large  disbursement 
for  a  conijiaratively  short  amusement,  were  willing  to  pay 
the  reduced  ju'ice  ;  so  that  though  the  drama  was  the  sta- 
ple portion  of  the  entertainment,  the  supplementary  farces 
were  no  mere  affairs  to  fill  uj)  the  bill,  but  had  their  own 
value  and  tiicir  own  audience.  The  two  most  successful 
dramas  of  that  time  were  "Tlie  C4reen  Bushes"  and  "The 
Fh)W(rs  of  the  Forest,"  and  both  were  written  by  Buck- 


THE   DRAMA   IN  THOSE   DAYS.  Isl 

Stone,  who  had  succeeded  so  well  in  suiting  my  father 
and  his  Adelphi  company  with  dramas  similar  in  style. 
Of  that  company  there  still  remained,  in  1847,  Mrs.  Fitz- 
william,  ray  mother,  Wright,  P.  Bedford,  O.  Smith,  and 
Cullenford,  the  original  Ralph  Nickleby.  They  were  sup- 
plemented by  Miss  Woolgar,  a  most  charming  and  fasci- 
nathig  young  lady,  who  soon  became  a  great  favorite ; 
Charles  Selby,  a  better  dramatist  than  actor  ;  Hughes, 
who  was  said  to  have  somewhat  resembled  my  father  in 
his  style ;  Lambert,  "  first  old  man  ;"  Munyard,  a  very 
excellent  second  low  comedian,  who  died  young ;  Miss 
Ellen  Chaplin  ;  and  Miss  Emma  Harding,  who  somewhat 
recently  returned  to  London  after  a  long  absence  in  Amer- 
ica, appearing  as  a  spiritualistic  medium. 

Mr.  Webster,  busied  as  manager  and  actor  at  the  Hay- 
market,  had  not  much  time  to  give  to  his  new  property  ; 
so  he  had  installed  Madame  Celeste  as  his  stage-directress, 
while  what  is  known  in  theatrical  parlance  as  "  the  front 
of  the  house  " — i.  e.,  supervision  of  the  box-ofiice,  money- 
takers,  check-takers,  play-bills,  treasury,  etc.  —  was  con- 
fided to  my  father's  old  friend  and  my  guardian,  Mr. 
Charles  Manby,  who,  though  entirely  unconnected  by 
birth  and  position — he  was  secretary  of  the  Institute  of 
Civil  Engineers — with  theatrical  matters,  seems  to  have 
always  been  mixed  up  in  them.  Celeste  Elliott,  popular- 
ly known  as  Madame  Celeste,  was  a  very  extraordinary 
woman.  Born  in  France,  sent  to  America,  married  there, 
when  quite  young,  to  a  man  named  Elliott,  she  arrived 
in  this  country  a  pantoraimist  and  dancer  by  pi'ofession, 
and  played  in  a  piece  in  which  she  had  no  word  to  utter, 
called  "  The  French  Spy."  To  the  day  of  her  death,  only 
a  year  or  two  ago,  her  English  was  not  merely  broken,  it 
was  smashed  into  fragments  ;  but  by  mere  force  of  will 
and  great  po2)ularity  she  for  years  caused  herself  to  be 
accepted  as  an  English-speaking  actress,  and  to  play  the 
heroines  in  a  London  theatre.  Early  in  life  she  obtained 
a  great  influence  over  Benjamin  Webster,  which,  during 
all  the  long  years  of  its  duration,  was  never  exercised,  I 
believe,  save  for  his  good.  Full  of  natural  energy  and 
resource,  full  of  French  excitement  and  elan,  knowing  all 


132  FIFTY   YEARS   OF   LOXDOX   LIFE. 

the  "  inside  life  "  of  her  profession  as  one  vrho  has  lived 
in  it  from  childhood  only  can,  of  indomitable  will  and  un- 
tiring working-power,  she  made  a  most  admirable  head  of 
the  Adelphi  establishment,  which,  under  her  direction, 
flourished  abundantly. 

Besides  the  Buckstone  dramas  which  I  have  mentioned, 
"  a  real  Adelphi  success,"  as  it  used  to  be  called  on  the 
bills,  was  achieved  by  "  Title  Deeds,"  a  play  written  by 
Mr.  R.  B,  Peake,  who  had  scored  previous  successes,  and 
of  whom  Shirley  Brooks  used  to  tell  a  ridiculous  non  se- 
quitur  story:  "Who  do  you  say  is  the  author  of  this  farce?" 

asked  an    elderly  play- goer;   "Dicky  Peake?     D d 

nonsense  !  he  couldn't  write  a  farce  !  Ihneio  his  father  T^ 
—by  "The  Harvest  Home"  and  "The  Hop-pickers,"  by 
Mr.  Parry;  and  by  a  version  of  the  "  Closerie  des  Genets," 
called  "  The  Willow  Copse,"  in  which  Mr.  Webster  played 
with  great  effect.  The  extraordinarily  attractive  farces 
of  "  Did  you  ever  send  your  Wife  to  Camberwell  ?"  "  How 
to  Settle  Accounts  with  your  Laundress,"  etc.,  were  the 
work  of  J,  Stirling  Coyne,  an  indefatigable  Irishman,  who, 
by  the  aid  of  a  French  dictionary,  and  a  knowledge  of  the 
requirements  of  the  stage  and  the  tastes  of  a  London  audi- 
ence, for  a  series  of  years  provided  managers  with  dra- 
matic Avares,  more  or  less  good,  but  nearly  always  popular. 
His  broad  farces,  full  of  quaint  verbal  and  practical  jokes, 
were,  taken  for  what  they  were,  very  amusing.  Better 
and  higher  work  was  done  by  Mark  Lemon  in  "  Domestic 
Economy  "  and  "  The  School  for  Tigers,"  in  each  of  which 
farces  Wriglit  was  provided  with  a  fresh,  thoughtful,  nat- 
ural bit  of  character,  worked  out  by  him  with  inimitable 
result.  On  these  two  farces,  and  another  called  "  Who 
lives  at  Number  Nine?"  and  on  his  performance  of  Paul 
Pry,  Wright's  fame  as  a  genuine  comic  actor  will  rest. 
Will  rest,  I  say,  forgetting  that  he  is  already  forgotten  ! 
Li  those  days  the  little  Adeljthi  was  a  popular  and  well- 
managed  resort,  its  company  was  united,  and  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  quiet  fun  and  pleasant  talk  in  the  small  and 
diiio-y  green-room,  hung  round  with  portraits  of  the  princi- 
pal members.  'I'o  me  if  was  fairy-land,  and  the  memory 
of  it  is  yet  fresh  in  my  mind. 


THE  DRAMA  IN  THOSE  DAYS.  133 

I  think  it  was  to  the  old  Olympic  that  I  was  taken  as  a 
child  by  my  father  to  see  a  strange  man  named  Geoi'ge 
Wild  in  a  strange  piece  called  "  The  Artful  Dodge."  It 
was  either  there  or  at  the  Queen's,  a  dingy  place  off  Tot- 
tenham Court  Road,  Avhere,  long  before  it  was  metamor- 
phosed by  Miss  Marie  Wilton  into  the  Prince  of  Wales's, 
I  saw,  in  company  with  Dickens,  a  piece  in  which  the  First 
Napoleon  reviewed  the  French  army,  consisting  of  three 
dirty  youths  and  a  vivandilre,  who,  on  the  general's  ap- 
proach, presented  arms,  and  saluted  him  with  "Vive  Em- 
proo  !"  Certainly,  I  have  no  remembrance  of  the  Olympic 
in  its  palmy  days  of  Vestris  and  Planche:  my  first  regu- 
lar recollection  is  of  going  there  to  the  pit,  to  see  a  man 
who  had  taken  the  town  by  storm  as  Othello.  Gustavus 
Vaughan  Brooke  was  his  name,  and  he  remains  in  my 
memory  as  the  best  representative  of  the  character  I  have 
ever  seen  :  manly,  soldierly,  with  all  Salvini's  gallantry 
and  pathos,  Avithout  a  suggestion  of  Salvini's  coarse  and 
repulsive  brutality,  with  a  voice  now  capable  of  the  soft- 
est modulation  in  love  or  pity,  now  trumpet  -  toned  in 
command — such  was  G.  V.  Brooke  when  I  first  saw  him. 
He  soon  dropped  away,  poor  fellow  ! — became  a  heavy 
drinker,  of  stout  and  porter  mostly,  and  lost  his  gallant 
bearing,  and  his  voice  grew  thick  and  muddy;  and,  though 
he  played  for  years  afterwards  —  he  went  down  in  the 
London,  a  ship  which  foundered  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  on 
her  way  to  Australia,  and  when  last  seen,  after  most  strenu- 
ous exertions  at  the  pumps,  was  leaning  over  the  bulwarks, 
calmlv  awaiting  his  coming  doom — he  was  virtually  a  lost 
man  in  his  first  season.  Soon  after  his  appearance  I  took 
my  mother  to  see  him,  and  she,  with  all  her  experience, 
was  very  much  impressed  by  his  powers.  As  for  me,  I 
was  infatuated,  haunted  the  theatre,  and  saw  Brooke  in 
all  his  characters — saw  him  in  Sir  Giles  Overreach,  where, 
in  the  last  act,  he  was  splendid;  saw  him  in  Hamlet,  where, 
throughout,  he  must  have  been  very  bad. 

I  am  not  quite  certain  as  to  the  way  in  which  "  Othello" 
was  cast,  but  I  think  Stuart,  known  as  the  "caged  lion,"  a 
fine  old-crusted  actor,  full  of  mouthings  and  conventional- 
isms, was  the  lago,  and  Stuart's  daughter  the  Desdemona ; 


134  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

and  I  have  an  idea  of  having  seen  Miss  Glyn,  afterwards 
a  celebrated  tragic  actress,  as  Emilia.  Leigh  Murray  was, 
I  suppose,  the  Cassio:  I  know  he  was  in  the  company,  for 
he  often  used  to  talk  to  me  of  Brooke,  and  bemoan  his  fail- 
ings, with  little  idea,  poor  fellow  !  that  he  himself,  a  few 
years  after,  would  fall  into  a  worse  state.  Later  on  was 
produced  a  play  called  "  The  Headsman,"  in  which  Leigh 
Murray  played  the  jeune  xyremier^  and  first  attracted  to 
himself  the  admiring  attention  of  the  pnblic.  It  was 
from  the  pit  of  the  old  Olympic,  entrance  to  which  I  had 
cheerfully  purchased  for  eighteenpence,  that  I  became 
desperately  enamored  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  whose  acq\aaint- 
ance  I  did  not  make  for  many  years  after,  but  whom  I 
then  worshipped  with  all  the  loyal  devotion  of  seventeen. 
She  was  charming  in  everything;  but  in  a  little  piece 
called  "  Time  Tries  All,"  in  which  Leigh  Murray  also 
appeared,  and  where  she  spoke  a  smart  epilogue,  which  I 
always  used  to  consider  specially  addressed  to  me,  she 
Avas  more  than  delightful.  In  "The  Eton  Boy,"  also  with 
Leigh  Murray,  and  with  the  mirthful  addition  of  Comp- 
ton,  driest  of  comedians,  in  "  Cousin  Cherry,"  and  in  many 
another  little  drama  of  that  day,  she  won  my  youthful 
heart,  which  she  has,  naturally,  retained  ever  since. 

At  the  old  Olympic  I  saw  a  very  clever  man,  named 
Lysander  Thompson,  in  a  kind  of  character — a  rustic  full- 
flavored  Englishman,  e.</.,  Tiger  in  "The  School  for  Re- 
form," such  as  was  played  by  the  elder  Emery — that  was 
very  popular  early  in  the  century,  but  which  has  quite  died 
out.  I  imagine  Mr.  Lysander  Thomjison  was  jtractically 
its  last  exponent.  I  saw  him  play  Zekiel  Homespun  in 
"The  Ileir-at-Law,"  but  cannot  remember  one  other  person 
in  the  cast.  But  I  perfectly  well  recollect  the  destruction 
by  fire  of  the  old  theatre  and  the  opening  of  the  new  one; 
for  by  that  time,  1H49, 1  was  a  jnember  of  the  Garrick 
Club,  and  moving  in  "tlieatrical  circles."  The  fire  took 
place  on  the  niglit  when  a  small  actor  named  Bender  was 
about  to  take  his  benefit;  and  tlie  new  house,  tlien  thought 
remarkably  pretty  and  commodious,  was  opened  on  one  of 
the  last  nights  of  the  year  wifli  a  very  strong  company, 
among  them  Frank  Matthews,  Alfred  Wigan,  Compton, 


THE  DRAMA  IN  THOSE  DAYS.  135 

Meadows,  Ryrlcr,  Mrs.  Seymour,  Mrs.  A.  Wigan,  Mrs, 
Mowatt,  Mr.  Davenport,  and  Miss  M.  Oliver.  The  three 
last-mentioned  artists  came  from  the  Marylebone,  where 
they  had  been  playing  under  the  management  of  Mr,  Wal- 
ter Watts,  under  whose  auspices  the  new  Olympic  had 
been  built,  and  was  to  be  managed. 

Who  was  Mr.  Walter  Watts?  Personally,  a  cheery, 
light  -  whiskered,  pleasant  little  man,  of  convivial  and 
champagne  -  supper  -  giving  tendencies.  What  was  he  ? 
Actors  in  those  days  were,  as  a  rule,  not  very  clear  about 
business  matters :  they  knew  he  was  not  an  actor ;  they 
thought  he  was  "something  in  the  City."  He  was  an 
excellent  paymaster,  very  hospitable  to  all  authors  and 
critics,  drove  in  a  handsome  brougham,  and  made  elegant 
presents  to  the  "leading  ladies,"  whom  he  admired. 
"Something  in  the  City,"  it  was  opined,  must  be  a  good 
berth.  The  position  which  Walter  Watts  really  occupied 
in  the  City  was  that  of  a  clerk  in  the  Globe  Insurance- 
office  at  a  comparatively  small  salary,  and  the  money  on 
which  he  had  lived  in  luxury  and  carried  out  his  theatri- 
cal speculations  was  obtained  by  fraud.  By  ingenious 
alterations  in  the  pass-books  and  ledgers,  aided,  one  would 
imagine,  by  gross  carelessness  on  the  part  of  responsible 
officials.  Watts,  when  discovered  and  arrested  in  April, 
1850,  had  robbed  his  employers  of  upward  of  £70,000. 
There  was  some  technical  legal  difficulty  in  framing  the 
indictment  against  him,  and  he  was  actually  convicted  of 
stealing  "  a  piece  of  paper."  A  point  of  law  was  reserved, 
but  afterwards  given  against  him  ;  he  was  sentenced  to 
ten  years'  transportation,  but  committed  suicide  the  same 
night  by  hanging  himself  to  the  grating  of  his  cell.  He 
was  the  precursor  of  Robson  and  Redpath,  both  of  whom 
swindled  in  a  somewhat  similar  way,  and  on  a  similar 
gigantic  scale. 

In  my  early  recollection  the  St.  James's  was  in  the  oc- 
cupation of  ]Mr.  John  Mitchell,  the  Bond  Street  librarian, 
and  was  devoted  to  the  production  of  French  plays  by 
French  actors.  Through  the  interest  of  my  guardian, 
Charles  Manby,  I  had  the  e?itr^e  of  the  house,  and  con- 
stantly availed  myself  of  the  privilege.     There  I  saw  with 


136  FIFTT  TEAES  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

special  interest — for  I  had  heard  of  a  certain  resemblance 
between  him  and  my  father  —  Frederic  Lemattre,  even 
then  no  longer  young,  but  full  of  vivacity  and  fire,  with 
his  high-pitched  voice  and  odd,  distorted  mouth,  deeply 
impressive  in  "Le  Docteur  Noir,"  delightfully  comic  in 
"  L'Auberge  des  Adrets."  I  have  seen  Lemaitre  in  some 
of  his  best  characters — in  the  "  Trente  Ans  de  la  Vie  d'un 
Joueur,"  where  his  wonderful  performance  forms  the 
subject  of  one  of  Dickens's  letters ;  years  afterwards 
in  "  Paillasse,"  a  personation  of  great  pathos ;  and  in 
"  Ruy  Bias,"  where  his  age  and  physical  disadvantages 
were  countei'balanced  by  his  genius.  There,  too,  I  saw 
Regnier,  the  first  comedian  of  the  Theatre  Fran9ais ; 
and  Lafont,  who  lived  to  be  a  great  age,  and  looked  and 
played  inimitably  to  tlie  last ;  and  fascinating  Mile.  Rose 
Cheri,  and  Bouffe,  a  kind  of  refined  Wright,  in  the  "  Gamin 
de  Paris."  At  the  St.  James's  I  first  became  intimate  with 
the  late  Charles  Lamb  Kenney,  who  in  those  days  was 
assisting  John  Oxenford  in  the  dramatic  criticism  of  the 
Times,  and  who  used  to  give  me  a  seat  in  his  box,  where 
I  passed  the  evening  listening  to  his  remarks  on  the  play, 
and  envying  the  lucky  mortal  who  had  suflicient  talent 
to  write  in  a  newspaper!  It  was  from  the  Times  box 
that  I  first  saw  Rachel,  by  far  the  finest  actress  I  have 
ever  seen.  Her  Camille  in  "  Les  Horaces,"  her  Ph6dre, 
her  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  are  as  fresh  in  my  memory  as 
Avhen  I  first  saw  them  ;  and  there  M-as  another  play — was 
it  called  "  Valerie?" — in  which  she  sustained  a  double  char- 
acter. They  talked  of  Ristori ;  they  talk  of  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt :  I  have  seen  them  both  in  their  best  roles,  but,  to 
my  mind,  neither  one  nor  the  other  is  to  be  compared  to 
Rachel. 

My  first  visit  to  tlu>  Strand  was  in  very  early  days, 
when  it  was  called  "  Pundi's  Playhouse,"  and  the  Keeleys 
were  acting  there  ;  but  beyond  those  facts  I  have  no  rec- 
ollection of  it.  What  I  first  clearly  remember  in  con- 
ned ion  with  the  little  theatre  is  a  dramatic  version  of 
"Martin  C'huzzlewit,"  with  a  clever,  jolly  -  looking  man 
)iauied  II.  Ilall,  who  "  d()iible<l  "  the  characters  of  Peck- 
sniff and  Mrs.  (Jani]>,  and  oiu'  Roberts,  who  made  an  ex- 


THE   DRAMA    IX    THOSE   DAYS.  13*7 

cellent  Tigg.  Then  I  knew  no  more  of  it  until  it  was  in 
the  hands  of  old  William  Farren,  who,  as  an  actor  of  old 
men,  I  liave  never  seen  surpassed  on  any  stage.  He  had 
an  excellent  company  —  Mrs.  Glover,  who  enjoyed  great 
celebrity  as  an  actress  of  old  women  ;  Mrs.  Stirling, 
Corapton,  and  Leigh  Murray.  For  them  Mark  Lemon 
wrote  an  admirable  drama  called  "  Hearts  are  Trumps," 
in  which  all  were  very  well  suited,  and  where  Leigh 
Murray,  who  played  an  aristocratic  villain,  for  the  first 
time  dared  to  represent  a  comparatively  young  man  with 
gray  hair,  being  made  up,  in  fact,  after  the  well-known 
"Jim"  Macdonald.  A  version  of  "The  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field "  was  also  very  successful,  and  a  little  comedy  called 
"  Poor  Cousin  Walter  "  was,  I  think,  one  of  the  earliest 
dramatic  productions  of  my  old  friend  Palgrave  Simpson. 
I  am  afraid  my  youthful  admiration  of  Shakspeare  and 
the  legitimate  drama  was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  carry 
me  often  to  the  remote  regions  of  Sadler's  Wells,  a  theatre 
which  the  pluck  and  energy  of  worthy  Mr.  Phelps  had 
rescued  from  the  lowest  condition  of  a  "  penny  gaif,"  and 
where  the  best  plays  were  then  presented  in  a  fitting  man- 
ner ;  but  I  well  recollect  seeing  a  performance  of  "  The 
Tempest,"  in  which  I  was  struck  not  so  much  by  the 
manager's  Prospero  as  by  the  Caliban  of  Mr.  George  Ben- 
nett, which  remains  on  my  mind  as  a  very  grim  fantastic 
impersonation.  Nor  did  I  much  affect  the  Marylebone 
while  under  Mrs.  Warner's  management,  though  I  once 
went  there  to  see  the  "  Winter's  Tale."  Later  on,  Avhen 
the  theatre  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  peccant  Watts, 
who  leased  it  before  he  took  the  Olympic,  I  was  a  more 
frequent  visitor.  For  there  was  first  introduced  to  an 
English  public  the  fascinating  Mrs.  Anna  Cora  Mowatt, 
an  American  actress,  who  was  also  a  poetess  and  a  very 
charming  woman.  With  her  was  her  compatriot,  Mr.  E. 
L.  Davenport,  who  not  merely  played  Shakspearian  and 
other  heroes,  but  actually  dared  to  appear  as  a  British 
sailor  —  William  in  "Black -eyed  Susan,"  a  character 
created  by  the  great  "Tippy"  Cooke.  Mrs.  Mowatt  and 
Mr.  Davenport  were  very  popular,  both  here  and  at  the 
Olj'mpic. 


138  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

My  reminiscences  of  the  Surrey  are  a  little  mixed.  I 
went  there  first  when  my  father  was  playing  a  short  sum- 
mer engagement  under  Mr.  Davidge's  management.  And 
my  mother,  in  later  years,  used  to  speak  of  another  en- 
gagement which  they  played  at  the  Surrey,  under  the  au- 
spices of  a  Mr.  Levi.  This  gentleman,  it  seems,  one  day 
asked  my  father  what  piece  he  proposed  to  produce  next, 
and  my  father  mentioning  "  The  Admirable  Ci'ichton,"  a 
version  of  Ainsworth's  novel,  whicli  had  been  successful 
at  the  Adelphi,  Mi-.  Levi  said,  "  That's  a  capital  notion, 
'The  Admiral  Crichton;'  and  we've  something  in  the 
wardrobe  that'll  just  do  for  it !  Jones,  step  up  to  the 
wardrobe,  and  fetch  that  admiral's  uniform  I  bought  last 
week  !"  When  I  visited  the  Surrey  as  a  young  man  it 
was  under  the  joint  management  of  Mr.  Shepherd  and 
Miss  Vincent,  "  the  ackuowledged  heroine  of  domestic 
drama,"  as  she  used  to  be  called  in  the  bills,  a  lady  Avhose 
great  part  was  Susan  Hopley,  a  virtuous  servant-maid. 
On  my  being  presented  as  the  son  of  the  late,  etc.,  to  Mr. 
Shepherd,  that  gentleman  affably  remarked,  "  Oh,  indeed  ! 
glad  to  know  you,  sir!  Did  your  father  leave  your  tnother 
pretty  well  offT' 

These  are  my  reminiscences  of  the  theatres  of  my  youth, 
where  some  of  my  happiest  hours  were  passed.  I  am  not 
so  much  of  a  theatre-goer  now,  but  I  should  be  ungrateful 
indeed  if  I  had  aught  but  tlve  kindliest  feelings  for  the 
"player-folk,"  from  whom  I  sprang,  among  wliom  I  lived, 
and  from  wlioni  I  have  received  constant  sympathy  and 
consideration. 


THE  INFLUENCE   OF  "PENDENNIS."  139 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    II^FLUENCE    OP    "  PENDENNIS." 

I  AM  afraid  that  my  mother  was  a  good  deal  disap- 
pointed at  the  non-fulfilment  of  the  dream  which  she  had 
imagined  would  be  accomplished  when  I  returned  from 
Germany — a  dream  in  which  all  the  leisure  portion  of  my 
life  was  to  be  passed  in  her  company,  and  in  improving 
my  mind  and  making  myself  famous  in  some  line  not  quite 
decided  upon.  She  had  plenty  of  sound  common-sense, 
and  ought  to  have  known  the  proneness  of  youth  to  give 
way  to  the  temptations  with  which  it  is  surrounded  ;  but 
she  seemed  to  have  an  idea  that  her  one  duckling  Avas  to 
be  different  from  the  rest  of  the  brood  ;  and  when  she 
found  him  perpetually  immersed  in  the  pond  of  pleasure, 
and  never  tired  of  diving  down,  loudly  quacking  his  de- 
light, upon  any  inducement  to  do  so,  she  felt  that  the  one 
hope  of  her  later  life  Avas  not  destined  to  be  realized. 

Her  reproaches  were  not  very  many,  and  certainly  not 
very  bitter.  It  had  always  been  her  desire  that  I  should 
do  something  to  distinguish  myself  in  some  profession — 
at  the  Bar,  she  had  hoped ;  and  when  circumstances 
proved  that  such  a  career  was  impossible,  she  had  accepted 
Lord  Clanricarde's  appointment  with  special  gratitude, 
knowing  as  she  did  that  the  holding  of  a  Government 
situation  was  by  no  means  incompatible  with  other  em- 
ployment— literary,  for  instance.  Look  at  Charles  Lamb 
in  the  India  House ;  and  there  was  Mr.  Sam  Anderson,  an 
old  friend  of  my  father's,  Avho  was  Registrar  of  something 
in  Chancery  Lane,  and  who  had  known  Sir  Water  Scott, 
and  written  some  convivial  songs,  and  been  introduced 
into  Christopher  North's  "  Noctes  Anibrosianse  "  under  an- 
other name.  Thus  my  dear  mother,  who  always  laugh- 
ingly declared  there  was  a  great  deal  of  Mrs.  Nickleby 


140  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

in  her,  would  prattle  on,  particularly  lamenting  that,  on 
the  rare  occasions  when  I  passed  an  evening  at  home,  and 
invariably  passed  it  in  reading,  I  should  indulge  in  the 
perusal  of  such  very  light  literature,  instead  of  devoting 
myself  to  the  acquisition  of  a  store  of  valuable  informa- 
tion. 

She  had  read  somewhere  that  Sir  Walter  Scott  had  said 
the  curse  of  his  life  had  been  his  "  desultory  reading."  I 
cannot  tell  whence  she  obtained  this  remarkable  declara- 
tion. I  have  never  found  it  in  Lockhart's  Life ;  and  it 
seems  exactly  the  opposite  of  what  Scott  would  have  said, 
and  what  must  have  been  the  truth.  But  that  was  my 
mother's  text,  and  on  it  she  preached  many  a  simple  ser- 
mon. Very  different  in  her  treatment  of  the  same  subject 
was  my  godmother,  a  worthy  old  spinster  lady  whom  I 
have  mentioned  as  living  with  us.  "  What  with  his  'Pick- 
wick' and  his  PuncW''  —  these  were  the  works  always 
selected  as  typical  of  my  studies — she  would  remark,  with 
great  asperity,  "I  wonder  the  boy  hasn't  softening  of  the 
brain  !  I'm  only  soriy  my  uncle  Beilby  is  not  alive  to  give 
him  a  good  talking  to !"  ''  My  uncle  Beilby,"  who  figured 
perpetually  in  the  old  lady's  conversation  under  this  guise 
or  as  "  the  dear  Bishop,"  was  Dr.  Beilby  Porteous,  a  for- 
mer diocesan  of  London,  whose  portrait  hung  on  our  din- 
ing-room wall,  and  whoso  name  was  to  me  anathema  ma- 
ranatha  from  the  manner  in  which  it  was  always  being 
held  up  to  me  as  precept  and  example. 

Although  the  jiursuit  of  pleasure  was  at  that  time  my 
most  chosen  avocation,  and  although  both  "  Pickwick " 
and  Pitnch  had  a  full  sliaro  of  my  admiration,  the  old 
lady's  sarcastic  condemnation  of  my  literar}"  tastes  was 
far  too  sweeping.  I  liad  become  John  Baker's  pupil  then, 
and  was  well  grounded  in  English  poetry  and  standard 
j>rose.  In  those  days  INIacaulay's  History  was  creating 
much  excitement  and  discussion,  and  I  had  brought  it 
back  from  one  of  my  visits  to  the  Continent  in,  I  am 
ashamed  to  say,  a  Tauchnitz  edition,  and  was  completely 
fascinated  by  its  brilliancy.  And  just  about  then  ap- 
jtearcd  the  first  numbers  of  JfoxaeJiold  Words,  which  I 
devoured  with  extreme  eagerness,  and  the  early  volumes 


THE  INFLUEiXCE   OF      TENDENNIS."  141 

of  which  still  appear  to  me,  after  a  tolerably  wide  expe- 
rience of  such  matters,  to  be  perfect  models  of  what  a 
magazine  intended  for  general  reading  should  be.  In 
them,  besides  the  admirable  work  done  by  Dickens  him- 
self— and  he  never  was  better  than  in  his  concentrated 
essays  —  there  were  the  dawning  genius  of  Sala,  which 
had  for  me  a  peculiar  fascination  ;  the  novels  of  Mrs. 
Gaskell ;  the  antiquarian  lore  of  Peter  Cunningham  and 
Charles  Knight ;  the  trenchant  criticism  of  Forster ;  the 
first-fruits  of  Wilkie  Collins's  unrivalled  plot-weaving; 
the  descriptive  powers  of  R.  H.  Home,  who  as  a  prose- 
writer  was  terse  and  practical;  the  poetic  pathos  of  Ade- 
laide Procter  ;  the  Parisian  sketches  of  Blanchard  Jer- 
rold;  the  singularly  original  "  Roving  Englishman  "  series 
of  Grenville  Murray;  the  odd  humor  of  Henry  Spicei*. 

Only  vaguely  in  those  days  had  I  heard  of  these  de- 
lightful beings  ;  but  of  the  writers  engaged  on  the  Man 
in  the  Moon,  a  humorous  illustrated  monthly  periodical 
then  appearing  under  the  acknowledged  editorship  of 
Albert  Smith  and  Angus  Reach,  I  had  somewhat  more 
direct  knowledge.  I  had  seen  Charles  Kenney  at  the 
French  plays  talking  to  an  earnest  -  faced,  long  -  haired 
young  man  whom  he  called  Angus  Reach  ;  and  at  the 
house  of  some  friends  I  had  met  a  delightful  old  lady 
whom  they  and  every  one  addressed  as  "Aunt  Sally,"  and 
who  was  actually  the  live  aunt  of  that  rollicking  littera- 
teur, Albert  Smith,  and  dwelt  in  her  nephew's  cottage 
in  that  very  village  of  Chertsey  about  which  he  was  al- 
ways writing.  "  Aunt  Sally  "  was  not  the  rose,  but  she 
had  lived  very  close  to  it,  and  I  venerated  her  accord- 
ingly- 

What  an  existence  was  that  led  by  those  men  !  To 
write,  and  to  publish  what  you  wrote,  and  to  be  paid  for 
writing  it !  The  theatrical  critics,  too,  with  free  .entree 
everywhere,  and  wielding  such  enormous  power!  I  knew 
them  all  by  sight,  and  used  to  sit  gaping  at  them  with 
wonder  and  admiration.  John  Oxenford  of  the  Times, 
enthroned  in  a  box  ;  David  Hastings  for  the  Herald ; 
Reach,  and  sometimes  Shirley  Brooks,  for  the  Chronicle ; 
Howard  Glover  for  the  Morniny  Post ;  Heraud,  the  long- 


142  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON    LIFE. 

haired  epic  poet,  for  the  Atliemmmi ;  Stirling  Coyne  for 
the  Sunday  Times;  and  Bayle  Bernard  for  the  Weekly 
Dispatch.  The  last  two  I  knew  personally,  as  they  had 
been  writers  for  the  Adelphi  in  my  father's  time,  and  I 
soon  made  acqnaintance  with  the  others.  And  the  more 
I  saw  of  them,  the  more  I  envied  them,  and  the  stronger 
grew  my  desire  to  enter  myself  of  their  craft.  It  was  a 
most  pleasant  way,  and  the  only  way  which  occurred  to 
me,  of  gratifying  two  strong  aspirations — to  make  myself 
a  name  of  some  kind,  and  to  earn  some  money  in  addition 
to  my  official  salary.  I  wanted  to  be  something  more 
than  a  clerk  in  the  post-office,  to  be  known  as  something 
else  than  the  everlasting  "  son  of — Adelphi,  you  know." 
And  though  I  have  often  been  told,  and  though  I  believe, 
that  I  should  have  done  verj^  well  as  an  actor,  having 
some  mimetic  faculty  and  dramatic  power  of  narration, 
I  never  contemplated  an  appearance  on  the  stage. 

To  get  admitted  into  the  ranks  of  literary  men,  among 
whom  I  might  possibly,  by  industry  and  perseverance, 
rise  to  some  position,  began  to  be  my  constant  thought; 
and  I  was  encotiraged  in  the  hope  that  I  might  succeed, 
perhaps  more  than  anything  else,  by  reading  the  career 
of  "Pendennis,"  which,  in  its  well  -  remembered  yellow 
cover,  had  then  been  appearing  month  by  month  for  the 
last  two  years,  and  in  its  complete  form  was  just  obtain- 
able at  the  libraries.  There  is  no  ])rose  story  in  our  Eng- 
lish language,  not  even  the  "  Christmas  Carol,"  not  even 
"The  Newcomes,"  not  even  the  "Scenes  of  Clerical  Life" 
or  "Silas  Marner" — and  now  I  have  named  what  are  to 
me  the  most  precious — which  interests  and  affects  me  like 
"Pciidennis."  It  had  this  effect  from  the  very  first.  I 
knew  most  of  it  so  thoroughly.  The  scenes  in  the  pro- 
vincial theatre — the  Fotheringay,  her  father,  the  prompt- 
er, the  company  —  were  such  perfect  creations  (to  this 
day  I  have  never  seen  any  hint  as  to  where  Thackeray 
got  his  study  of  these  people,  who  were  <]uite  out  of  his 
usual  line);  the  position  of  Pciidennis  and  his  mother  was 
so  analogous  to  that  of  iiic  and  mine — her  devotion,  his 
extravagance;  the  fact  that  I  was  personally  accpiainted 
with  Andrew  Arcedeckne,  the  (triginal  of  Foker,  in  whom 


THE   INFLUENCE   OF   "  PENDENNIS."  143 

he  was  reproduced  in  the  most  hidicrously  lifelike  man- 
ner: all  this  awakened  in  me  a  special  interest  in  the 
book  ;  and  when,  in  the  course  of  Pen's  fortunes,  he  en- 
ters upon  the  literary  career,  writes  bis  verses  for  the 
Spring  Annual,  dines  with  Bungay,  visits  Shandon,  is 
engaged  on  the  Pall  Mali  Gazette,  and  chums  with  "War- 
rington, who  makes  that  ever-to-be-quoted  speech  about 
the  power  of  the  press:  "Look  at  that,  Pen!  There  she 
is,  the  great  engine ;  she  never  sleeps,"  etc. — when  I  came 
to  this  portion  of  the  book  my  fate  was  sealed.  To  be 
a  member  of  that  wonderful  Corporation  of  the  Goose- 
quill,  to  be  recognized  as  such,  to  be  one  of  those  jolly 
fellows  who  earned  money  and  fame,  as  I  thought,  so 
easily  and  so  pleasantly,  was  the  one  desire  of  my  life ; 
and,  if  zeal  and  application  could  do  it,  I  determined  that 
my  desire  should  be  gratified. 

But,  as  I  have  since  had  occasion  to  point  out  to  many 
scores  of  eager  neophytes,  the  literary  profession  is  the 
very  one  in  which,  though  zeal  and  application  are  after- 
wards of  great  assistance,  they  are  not  the  be-all  and  end- 
all  :  something  more  is  absolutely  requisite  at  the  out- 
set. It  is  of  no  use,  as  John  Oxenford  used  to  say,  look- 
ing over  his  spectacles  in  his  inimitably  dry,  sententious 
way — "  It's  of  no  use  printing  in  italics  if  you've  got  no 
ink ;"  and  it  certainly  is  of  no  use  being  remarkably  prac- 
tical and  business-like  in  literature  if  you  have  no  ideas 
to  express.  I  had,  or  thought  I  had,  ideas  about  certain 
small  matters,  but  how  to  express  them,  and  where  to  find 
the  opportunity  for  such  expression,  was  the  difliculty.  I 
had  written  tolerable  verses  at  school,  and  had  continued 
the  practice,  off  and  on.  I  felt  sure,  though  I  had  never 
attempted  it,  that  I  could  describe  a  play  and  fairly  criti- 
cise the  acting  ;  equally,  I  could  review  a  novel  or  a  book 
of  travel,  and  could,  I  thought,  narrate  any  personal  ex- 
perience which  might  be  worth  recording.  But  how  and 
when  and  where  ?  The  desire  for  some  such  outlet  was 
becoming  overwhelming,  and  v,^as  making  me  positively 
ill.  Tlius,  then,  my  Muse  labored,  and  thus,  at  last,  was 
she  delivered. 

It  was,  I  grieve  to  say,  in  church,  in  St.  John's  Wood 


144  FIFTY   YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

Chapel,  facing  down  the  Park  Road,  and  well  known  to 
all  frequenters  of  Lord's.  We  had  a  pew  there,  and  my 
mother  was  a  very  regular  attendant.  The  incumbent 
was  a  most  excellent  but  rather  dry  and  prosy  old  gentle- 
man, a  Scotchman  named  Wharton  ;  and  one  Sunday 
morning,  while  he  was  holding  forth,  my  thoughts  wan- 
dered away  to  the  frontispiece  of  a  book  I  had  read  in 
my  boyhood,  called  "  Lives  of  the  Brigands,"  or  some 
such  title,  by  a  man  named,  I  think,  Macfarlane.  The 
frontispiece  illustrated  a  story  in  the  book.  On  the  death 
of  a  brigand  chief,  the  command  was  claimed  by  a  young 
fellow  w^ho  had  recently  joined  the  band,  but  had  always 
given  evidence  of  cleverness  and  courage.  The  claim 
was  allowed,  provided  he  consented,  as  a  proof  of  his 
devotion  to  the  cause,  to  kill  the  girl  to  whom  he  was 
engaged,  and  to  this  suggestion  he  assented.  Old  Mr. 
Wharton  boomed  above  me  in  his  wooden  box,  and  my 
thoughts  began  to  work.  It  was  a  good  subject.  Pen's 
first  printed  verses  were  suggested  by  a  picture.  Could 
not  I—  ?  in  the  same  metre,  too.  No  need  of  much  effort 
of  memory  to  recall  that— it  was  always  in  my  mind  : 

"  Although  I  enter  not, 
Yet  round  about  the  spot 
Sometimes  I  hover." 

That  was  it.  Now,  let  me  see.  "  And,  my  dear  braith- 
reii— "  Oh  dear,  that  will  never  do  !  We  must  shut  Mr. 
Wharton  more  completely  out  of  this  affair.  Now,  let 
us  suppose  that  the  second  in  command  addresses  the 
candidate,  and  names  the  terms  on  which  the  band  wdll 

elect  him  : 

"  Thou  hast  claimed  to  be  our  chief, 
Thou  art  strong  in  thy  belief 

Of  thy  powers : 
Thou  hoastcst  nerve  and  skill 
Enough  to  curb  a  will 
iSucli  as  ours !" 

That  Htan/.a,  and  one  or  two  more,  were  in  progrefls  be- 
fore the  worthy  old  clergyman  dismissed  us.  When  I 
reached  h<nne  I  worked  away  at  my  subject,  and  that 
evening  1  read  the  verses  to  my  mother,  taking  care  not 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF   "PENDENNIS."  145 

to  wound  her  by  telling  her  where  the  original  conception 
had  taken  place.  My  dear  critic's  judgment  was  not 
blinded  by  lier  maternal  love,  but  she  thought  the  little 
2>oem  good  enough  to  pass  muster  in  any  magazine. 

Then  the  question  arose,  WJiere  to  send  it  ?  Several 
periodicals  were  discussed  and  put  aside  as  too  grand, 
too  important,  too  serious.  Finally,  we  resolved  that  Mr. 
Harrison  Ainsworth,  the  proprietor  and  editor  of  Ains- 
wort/i's  Magazine,  should  be  the  favored  recipient.  So  I 
sent  the  verses,  with  a  modest  letter,  explaining  who  I 
Avas,  "  the  son  of,"  etc.,  and  anxiously  waited  the  great 
man's  reply.  It  came  almost  before  I  expected  it,  and  it 
was  delightful.  Mr.  Ainsworth  had  read  the  verses  and 
found  them  excellent;  he  was  pleased  to  see  that  the  son 
of  his  old  friend  was  at  an  early  age  exhibiting  talent, 
though  in  a  different  line  from  that  in  which  his  father 
had  shone  ;  he  had  great  pleasure  in  accepting  the  poem, 
which  would  appear  in  an  early  number  of  the  maga- 
zine.    Meanwhile,  a  proof  would  be  sent  me. 

There  was  joy  in  our  little  household  that  day;  there 
was  ecstacy  two  days  later,  when  the  proof  arrived.  I 
shall  never  forget  that  proof:  it  had  a  jn-inted  ticket  stuck 
on  to  the  left-hand  corner,  desiring  that  after  it  had  been 
revised  it  should  be  sent  to  Mr.  Somebody  at  Beaufort 
House,  in  the  Strand.  Save  some  small  error  in  punctua- 
tion, there  was  nothing  to  correct ;  but  I  was  not  going 
to  trust  the  precious  paper  to  the  post,  in  which  it  might 
have  been  delayed  or  lost ;  so  I  set  off  with  it  myself  to 
Beaufort  House,  noticing  as  I  passed  down  the  Strand  the 
name  of  "  Warrington,"  a  seal-engraver,  over  a  shop-door, 
which,  with  my  Pendennis  worship,  I  took  as  a  good  omen. 
I  found  Messrs.  Whiting's  printing-office — I  had  plenty  of 
experience  of  it  afterwards,  for  it  was  there  All  the  Year 
Itotind  was  printed,  and  it  was  burned  down  long  ago  ; 
I  found  Mr.  Somebody — the  first  printer,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Fairbrothers  in  Bow  Street,  who  did  the  theat- 
rical-bill work,  I  had  ever  seen — in  a  long,  low  room  at 
the  top  of  an  enormous  flight  of  stairs,  and  placed  the 
proof  in  his  hand.  He  was  a  fat  little  man,  in  black  cali- 
co sleeves,  and  with  a  dirty  white  apron  looped  over  his 

7 


146  FITTT   YEARS  OF   LONDOX  LIFE. 

shoulders.  He  seemed  rather  surprised  at  my  calling  on 
him,  but  received  me  with  a  half-pitying  smile  :  he  could 
not  say  exactly  when  the  verses  would  appear,  but  no 
doubt,  as  Mr.  Ainsworth,  according  to  what  I  had  told 
him,  had  said  it  would  be  soon,  wh}'-,  it  would  be  soon ! 
That  was  all  I  could  get  from  Mr.  Somebody — but  what 
did  it  matter  ?  Was  I  not  already  "  one  of  them  ?" — was 
there  not  work  of  mine  actually  in  type  ?  Let  long-haired 
Reach  and  complacent  Shirley  Brooks  look  to  themselves! 
I  had  started  on  my  career,  and  ere  long  would  come  thun- 
dering up  alongside  them ! 

The  verses  about  the  brigands  were  not  in  the  next 
number  of  Ainsioorth'' s  Magazine,  at  which  I  was  sur- 
prised; nor  in  the  one  succeeding,  at  which  I  was  indig- 
nant. I  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Ainsworth — indeed  I  wrote 
many,  ranging  from  the  urgent  appeal  to  the  sarcastic  in- 
vective ;  he  replied  to  one,  but  wisely  ignored  the  rest. 
And  it  may  interest  young  authors,  or  would-be  authors, 
to  know  that  these  celebrated  verses  never  did  appear  in 
Ainsioorth'' s  Magazine,  but  saw  the  light  a  year  or  two 
afterwards  in  a  Keepsake,  when  I  was  beginning  to  make 
my  way  along  the  thorny  path.  It  is  only  two  or  three 
years  ago  that  I  told  this  story  in  the  presence  and  to  the 
great  amusement  of  Mr.  Ainsworth,  with  whom  I  had  a 
pleasant  acquaintance,  at  a  banquet  given  in  his  honor  at 
Manchester. 

About  this  time,  towai'ds  the  close  of  the  year  1851, 1 
made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  Albert  Smith,  Avitli 
whom  I  speedily  contracted  an  intimate  friendship — a 
friendship  the  warmth  and  closeness  of  which  were  not 
in  the  least  affected  by  the  fact  that  he  was  fifteen  years 
my  senior.  I  had  met  him  twice  previous  to  this.  Early 
in  '47,  just  after  my  appointment  to  the  Post-office,  and 
while  I  was  still  the  rawest  of  youths,  my  mother,  with 
more  affection  than  discretion,  had  asked  for  and  obtained 
permission  for  me  to  accom])any  her  to  a  dinner  to  which 
she  liad  Ix-cii  invited  l)y  ]\Ir.  and  Mrs.  Horace  Twiss,  at 
tlicir  house  in  Park  IMacc,  St.  .lanu's's  Street.  Mr.  Twiss, 
wlio  was  connected  with  tlie  Kcml)le  family,  was  himself 
affiliated  to  jonrnalism  and  literature  —  he  was  the  first 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF   "PENDENNIS."  147 

Parliamentary  summary  writer  in  the  Times^  and  the  au- 
thor of  the  "  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,"  and  had  been  an  old 
friend  of  my  father's.  The  dinner  was,  oddly  enough, 
given  on  the  day  of  a  "  general  fast,"  which  had  been  sol- 
emnly fixed  by  proclamation  of  Parliament  "  on  account 
of  the  grievous  scarcity  and  dearth  of  divers  articles  of 
sustenance  and  necessaries  of  life."  There  was  certainly 
no  dearth  of  luxury  at  Horace  Twiss's  table — no  dearth 
of  wit  around  it.  There  was  a  large  party,  but  I  can  only 
recollect  the  famous  editor  of  the  Times,  John  Delane, 
whose  presence  I  had  indeed  forgotten,  until  he  reminded 
me  of  it  years  after ;  Albert  Smith  ;  and  Thomas  Knox 
Holmes,  who  saw  and  pitied  my  "  fish-out-of- water  "  con- 
dition in  such  a  gathering — I  was  only  sixteen — and  took 
special  pains  to  talk  to  me  and  set  me  at  my  ease.  After 
dinner,  Arthur  Smith,  M.  Hallett,  and  others  of  their  set 
came,  and  being  joined  by  Albert,  sang  some  of  the  Christy 
Minstrel  airs  just  coming  into  vogue,  the  words  having 
been  parodied  to  apply  to  persons  and  matters  of  the  day. 

Albert  Smith  had  always  a  great  admiration  and  regard 
for  my  mother,  whom  he  met  there  for  the  first  time,  and 
said  a  few  kind  words  to  me  on  my  introduction  to  him. 
Once  afterwards  I  had  met  him  in  the  green-room  of  the 
Adelphi.  But  we  had  never  really  known  each  other  until 
one  autumn  night,  when  I  found  him  dining  late  at  the 
Garrick  Club.  When  his  dinner  was  over  he  sat  down  at 
my  table,  and  talked  so  pleasantly  that,  instead  of  adjourn- 
ing to  the  smoking-room — he  was  not  a  smoker — I  re- 
mained with  him.  We  commenced  pacing  the  room  side 
by  side,  up  and  down,  and  so  we  continued  until  nearly 
midnight.  I  do  not  know  what  we  talked  about — possibly 
I  opened  my  heart  to  him,  and  told  him  how  I  envied  and 
longed  for  a  literary  life — but  then  and  there  commenced 
a  friendship  which  continued  close  and  intimate,  with  but 
one  small  break,  until  his  death  nine  years  after ;  and  to 
this  friendship  I  owe  much  of  my  life's  happiness,  among 
other  items  of  it  my  wife. 

At  this  time  Albert  Smith  was  desperately  busy  in  the 
preparation  of  his  new  entertainment.  In  the  previous 
August  he  had  made  an  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc,  in  those 


148  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

days  a  very  rare  feat ;  he  had  written  an  account  of  it  in 
Black-ioood ;  and,  garnished  with  songs,  "  characters,"  and 
splendid  ilhistrative  views  by  AVilliam  Beverly,  it  was  to 
form  the  staple  of  a  monologue  to  be  given  by  him  at  the 
Egyptian  Hall,  the  principal  room  of  which  he  had  just 
acquired,  and  which  was  being  decorated  for  the  purpose. 
He  was  not  a  novice  at  the  woi-k  ;  two  years  previously 
he  had  made  his  first  appearance  before  the  public  at 
Willis's  Rooms,  in  an  entertainment  written  by  himself, 
called  "The  Overland  Mail,"  descriptive  of  the  route  to 
India,  relieved  by  sketches  of  character  and  "patter" 
songs,  also  illustrated  by  Mr.  Beverly,  whose  fame  was 
then  dawning. 

Let  me  picture  him  as  he  was  in  those  days  when  our 
intimacy  commenced.  A  man  of  thirty-five  years  of  age, 
with  large  head,  large  body,  short  legs  ;  long  hair,  long, 
reddish-brown  beard  and  mustache  ;  small,  keen,  deep-set 
gray  eyes ;  good  aquiline  nose ;  small  hands  and  feet ;  al- 
ways badly  dressed :  when  at  home  at  work  he  wore  a 
short  blue  blouse,  such  as  is  to  be  seen  on  all  the  Swiss 
peasants,  and  an  old  pair  of  trousers;  in  the  street  he 
was  given  to  gaudy  neckerchiefs,  and  had  a  festoon  of 
"charms"  dangling  from  his  watch-chain.  lie  lived  at 
No.  12  Percy  Street,  Tottenham  Court  Road,  the  draw- 
ing-room floor  of  which,  and  several  of  the  bedrooms, 
being  at  the  service  of  his  parents,  one  aunt,  and  a  sister, 
who  were  entirely  dependent  on  him,  and  to  whom  he  be- 
haved with  constant  affection  and  liberality,  Avhile  the 
ground-floor  he  kept  to  himself.  The  front  dining-room 
was,  save  on  the  occasion  of  his  not  infrequent  supper- 
parties,  but  little  used.  The  back  room  was  his  sanctum, 
where  he  worked  at  a  small  carved  -  oak  davenport,  the 
fac-simile  of  which  has  been  in  my  possession  for  years. 
The  room  was  lined  with  books,  Avhich  also  covered  the 
floor,  together  with  proof-sheets,  prints,  play-bills,  bits  of 
tapestry  or  silk-sttiff,  and  all  kinds  of  literary  litter.  On 
the  wall  were  an  old  clock  wliicli  did  not  go,  a  water-color 
]>icliirc  of  the  Mar<|uisc  dc  Uiiuvillicrs  hesitating  bet  ween 
dagger  or  ]>oison  ;  on  the  door  a  framed  engraving,  jifter 
Iloracf  Vernet,  of  the  ghostly  horsemiui  in  Bilrger's  "  Le- 


THE  INFLtJEXCE  OF  "PEXDEXNIS."  149 

ftore,"  a  ballad  which  Albert  translated  very  successfully; 
one  of  the  Avindows  was  fitted  with  an  aquarium,  a  novel- 
ty in  those  days ;  on  the  broad  mantel-piece,  hung  with 
faded  stuff,  was  a  figure  of  a  Swiss  peasant,  with  a  clock- 
face  in  his  waistcoat ;  all  kinds  of  small  Swiss  carved 
toys,  Tui-kish  slippers,  Egyptian  small  idols,  Danton's  stat- 
uettes of  Rubini  and  Lablache,  Venetian  glasses,  goblets, 
and  flagons  —  rare  then,  in  the  pra^-Salviati  period  —  a 
lady's  black  silk  mask  with  a  lace  fall,  an  Italian  stiletto, 
and  an  old  Roman  lamp.  On  a  small  table,  under  a  glass 
shade,  was  a  pair  of  female  hands,  beautifully  modelled 
in  wax,  the  originals  being  Lady  Blessington's.  In  an  old 
oak  armoire,  besides  all  kinds  of  rubbish,  was  a  bottle  of 
sherry,  which  was  constantly  being  produced  with  the 
short  invitation,  "Have  a  drink?"  one  of  the  Venetian 
glasses  being  brought  down  for  the  purpose,  and  duly 
wiped  on  the  host's  blouse  or  a  convenient  duster.  In  a 
case  in  the  hall  stood  a  skeleton,  a  memento  of  Albert's 
student -days  at  the  Middlesex  Hospital,  which  I  have 
seen,  after  old  Pagan  fashion,  propped  in  a  chair  at  the 
supper-table,  with  a  chaplet  of  flowers  round  its  skull. 

I  have  never  met  any  man  more  thorough  in  his  whole 
character,  certainly  no  one  more  thorough  in  his  likes  and 
dislikes,  than  Albert  Smith  :  from  the  moment  he  "  took 
me  lip  "  he  presented  me,  Avith  glowing  credentials,  to  his 
immediate  set,  and  I  was  at  once  cordially  received  by 
them.  Most  prominent  among  them  was  his  younger 
brother  Arthur,  a  man  full  of  cleverness  of  a  quaint  kind, 
of  a  remarkably  sweet  disposition  and  winning  manner, 
and  of,  as  was  about  to  be  proved,  singular  aptitude  for 
business.  He,  too,  had  been  a  medical  student,  but  up  to 
this  period  had  made  no  particular  mark  in  life,  the  only 
incident  in  his  career  worth  mention  having  been  his  mar- 
riage with  an  heiress  ;  but  he  rose  with  the  opportunity, 
and  in  the  organization  of  all  the  before  -  the  -  curtain  ar- 
rangements of  the  Egyptian  Hall  undertaking — the  most 
important  provision  for  money -taking,  check -taking, 
money-payments,  bill-posting,  advertising,  the  comfort  of 
the  audience,  everything,  in  fact,  save  the  actual  delivery 
of  the  lecture  and  songs — he  developed  a  special  ability 


150  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

which  I  have  never  seen  equalled.  Albert  Smith  was 
never  tired  of  acknowledging  that  a  very  large  propor- 
tion of  the  extraordinary  success  attending  his  nine  years' 
tenancy  of  the  Egyptian  Hall  was  due  to  his  brother's  un- 
remitting care  and  attention  ;  and  Dickens,  the  first  and 
second  series  of  whose  public  readings  he  j^lanned  and  su- 
perintended, had  equal  faith  in  his  business  talent,  as  well 
as  a  deep  personal  regard  for  him.  "  As  for  poor  Arthur 
Smith,"  Dickens  wrote  to  Forster,  immediately  after  A. 
S.'s  death  in  '61,  "it  is  as  if  my  right  arm  were  gone," 

Arthur  was  by  no  means  "  literary,"  had  read  very  lit- 
tle and  written  nothing  ;  but  he  had  keen  observation 
and  was  very  suggestive.  Much  of  Albert's  successful 
fun  had  its  origin  in  Arthur's  droll  ideas,  and  Albert  used 
to  say  that  Arthur's  riddle,  "  What  is  marmalade  ?"  the 
answer  being  a  quotation  from  the  description  on  the  pot, 
"  An  excellent  substitute  for  butter  at  breakfast,"  was  en- 
titled to  rank  among  the  best  conundrums  of  the  day.  Ar- 
thur lived  with  his  brother  in  Percy  Street,  and  was  with 
him  almost  every  hour  of  the  day  ;  he  received  me  at  once 
into  his  regard,  and  tlienceforth  I  was  almost  as  intimate 
with  him  as  with  Albert.  Just  at  this  time  I  used  to  join 
them  after  leaving  my  ofiice,  generally  finding  them 
among  the  scaffolding  and  whitewasli  of  the  Egyptian 
Hall,  then  under  process  of  alteration  ;  then  we  would 
adjourn  to  some  cheap  and  quiet  place  for  dinner,  and 
spend  the  rest  of  the  evening  together. 

Prominent  among  the  intimates  of  both  the  brothers  at 
that  time  was  Joseph  Ilulme  Robins,  known  to  every  one 
as  "Joe  Robins,"  also  a  quaint  liumorist,  and  in  many 
respects  a  very  entertaining  fellow.  Robins,  Avho  was  a 
nephew  of  the  well-known  auctioneer,  had  been  a  fellow- 
student  with  Albert  at  the  Middlesex  nosi)ital,  had  ac- 
o<)nii)airK'd  liiiii  on  liis  trij)  to  the  East,  and  on  liis  return 
liad  become  assistant  to  Dr.  Ucajiian,  of  C'ovent  (Tarden, 
whose  daugliter  he  afterwards  married.  One  of  his  stories 
of  this  e.\]>erience  was  that,  it  being  considered  right  lie 
should  attend  the  funeral  of  an  infant  ])atient,  he  was 
walking  u])  the  church-yard  of  St.  Paul's,  his  face  in  liis 
handkercliief,  when  a  boy  wiio  recognized  him  called  out, 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  "PENDENNIS."  151 

"Who  pisoned  the  babby?"  and  created  much  scandal. 
Coming  into  a  legacy  shortly  after,  Robins  abandoned 
medicine,  and  put  his  money  into  a  Manchester  ware- 
house in  the  City ;  but  he  knew  nothing  of  business,  and 
soon  lost  his  all.  He  then  went  on  the  stage,  but  the  ex- 
traordinarily humorous  perception  and  expression  which 
characterized  him  in  private  deserted  him  completely  in 
public,  and  he  made  little  or  no  mark.  He  died  a  few 
years  since,  after  a  long  illness. 

At  his  best  he  was  ong  of  the  funniest  men  I  have  ever 
seen.  He  had  a  comic  face,  Avith  pendulous  cheeks,  and  a 
stout  figure,  knew  music,  could  sing  fairly  and  imitate 
excellently.  He  had  several  little  scenes  of  his  own  ar- 
rangement, lasting  two  minutes,  which  were  infinitely  di- 
verting :  he  would  imitate  an  approaching  train,  the  puff- 
ing of  the  engine,  its  going  under  an  arch,  its  stopping — 
"  Wolverton  !  Wolverton !"  the  descent  of  a  passenger, 
the  rush  to  the  refreshment-room,  demand  of  a  cup  of  tea, 
agony  at  its  heat,  blowing  it  frantically,  ringing  of  bell, 
whistle  of  engine,  tea-consumer  left  behind  !  He  would 
imitate  the  marching  off  of  the  band  after  trooping  the 
colors,  the  tuning  of  the  instruments  in  a  theatrical  or- 
chestra and  the  remarks  of  the  performers,  an  operatic 
scene  between  soprano,  tenor,  and  bass,  the  feeding  of 
the  animals  at  the  Zoo,  rocket -time  at  Vauxhall,  and  a 
hundred  other  things.  One  of  his  favorite  jokes  was  to 
rattle  an  enormous  chain  on  the  street-door  in  Percy 
Street,  throwing  it  down  and  exclaiming  melodramatical- 
ly, "  Friends  to  the  prisoner  !"  He  was  thoroughly  versed 
in  the  mysteries  of  pantomime  lore,  and  it  was  to  this, 
and  to  his  personal  qualifications,  that  he  owed  his  selec- 
tion to  play  Clown  in  the  Amateur  Pantomime,  of  which 
more  anon. 

With  the  Keeley  family  —  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Keeley  and 
their  two  daughters,  Mary  and  Louise — Albert  Smith  had 
a  long  -  existent  friendship.  He  had  written  plays  and 
burlesques  for  the  Lyceum  when  under  their  manage- 
ment, and  the  elder  daughter,  who  afterwards  became  his 
wife,  had  made  her  debut  in  his  version  of  "  The  Cricket 
on  the  Hearth."    For  Robert  Keeley's  natural  wit  and 


152  FIFTY  YEARS  OP  LONDON  LIFE. 

shrewdness,  anfl  for  his  artistic  impersonations,  he  had 
great  admiration.  I  was  speedily  presented  to  the  Kee- 
leys — Mrs.  Keeley  had,  of  course,  known  me  as  a  child — 
was  made  free  of  their  house,  and  received  from  them 
constant  kindness.  They  lived  at  that  time  at  No.  19 
Brompton  Square,  in  that  region  which  was  once  the 
chosen  spot  for  theatrical  tents  to  be  pitched.  Farrens, 
Keeleys,  Buckstones,  Wigans,  and  Miss  Faucit  have  I 
known  in  Brompton  Square  ;  Planche  in  Michael's  Grove  ; 
T.  P.  Cooke  in  Thurloe  Square  ;  Charles  Mathews  and 
Madame  Vestris  in  Gore  Lodge,  Fulham  ;  John  Reeve 
and  G.  H.  Rodwell  in  Brompton  Row  ;  Wright  in  Chel- 
sea ;  Miss  Woolgar — where  she  still  lives — in  the  Vale, 
Chelsea.  The  omnibuses  were  filled  with  actors,  and  foot- 
light  celebrities  were  common  as  blackberries.  Not  many 
of  them  were  to  be  met  at  the  Keeleys',  however,  whose 
"  connection "  was  strictly  a  private  one,  composed  of 
many  pleasant  elements,  young  and  old,  which  were  gen- 
erally brought  together  on  a  Sunday  evening.  In  the 
week  there  was  no  time  for  festivity  at  No.  19,  for  re- 
hearsals in  the  morning  and  acting  at  night  kept  the  Kee- 
leys constantly  engaged,  while  the  afternoon  was  rigidly 
devoted  to  purposes  of  rest,  all  callers  being  tabooed. 

Another  friend  of  Albert  Smith's  to  whom  I  was  pre- 
sented, and  who  was  good  enough  to  admit  me  to  an  in- 
timacy which  was  greatly  to  my  advantage,  was  James 
Lystcr  O'Beirne,  an  Irishman  but  recently  arrived  in  Lon- 
don, connected  with  the  law  and  the  press,  and  secretary 
of  a  public  company.  To  Mr.  O'Beirne  I  owe  absolutely 
my  first  introduction  to  the  ))ublic,  my  first  actual  ac- 
quaintance with  the  delightful  mysteries  of  a  printing- 
oflice,  my  first  apprenticeship  to  journalism.  Thus  it 
came  about  :  after  reading  some  verses  of  mine,  a  little 
skit  that  had  especial  interest  to  him  and  Albert  Smitli, 
INIr.  O'Beirne  infornuMl  nu'  lliat,  among  other  press-work, 
he  edited  the  Court  Jour/tal,  then  the  property  of  Mr.  W. 
Thomas,  a  well-known  news-agent  in  Catherine  Street, 
Strand,  and  tliat,  if  I  chose,  he  could,  he  thouglit,  get  me 
"on"  to  that  organ.  I  need  not  say  I  accepted  tlu^  offer 
with  delight.     I  saw  Mr.  Thomas,  and  I  was  engaged  at 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  "  PENDENNIS.'*  153 

a  salary  of  £1  a  week,  very  irregularly  paid — hear  this, 
all  ye  budding  journalists  ! — to  contribute  regular  dra- 
matic criticisms,  occasional  i)oems,  and  anything  else  I 
liked  to  send  in.  My  first  poem — I  have  it  before  me  at 
the  present  writing,  duly  cut  out,  and  pasted  in  a  book 
by  my  mother's  proud  care — was  published  in  the  Court 
Journal  of  the  6th  March,  1852,  verses  "On  the  Death 
of  Thomas  Moore,"  an  event  which  had  happened  at  the 
end  of  the  previous  mouth. 

So  I  w'as  Pendennis  at  last !  with  my  entree  to  the  the- 
atres, and  my  power  of  saying  what  I  liked  about  them, 
and  my  delightful  visits  to  the  printing-office,  and  my 
proofs,  and  my  colloquies  with  my  colleague,  Mr.  Lum- 
ley,  now  and  for  many  years  pi'oprietor  and  editor  of  the 
C.  J.,  the  circulation  and  influence  of  which  he  has  enor- 
mously extended.  James  O'Beirne  was  very  kind  to  me. 
I  had  the  run  of  his  chambers  at  the  corner  of  King  Street 
and  St.  James's  Street,  now  a  club,  and  the  advantage  of 
his  advice  and  experience. 

Just  about  this  time,  too — the  spring  of  1852 — was  es- 
tablished the  original  Fielding  Club,  of  which  I  was  a 
constant  attendant,  and  where  I  spent  many  happy  hours 
and  made  many  pleasant  and  useful  acquaintances.  It 
had  a  predecessor  in  the  C.C.C.,  or  Cider  Cellar  Chib, 
held  at  the  tavern  of  that  name,  in  a  room  at  the  bottom 
of  the  stairs  on  the  right,  immediately  facing  the  bar.  I 
was  there  once  or  twice  as  a  visitor,  but  was  not  a  mem- 
ber ;  it  was,  in  fact,  before  my  time.  The  establishment 
of  a  night  club — the  "  Fielding  "  w^as  the  name  selected 
by  Thackeray,  to  whom  the  choice  of  title  was  delegated 
— was  decided  on  in  consequence  of  the  impossibility  of 
getting  supper  at  the  Garrick,  or,  indeed,  of  infusing  any- 
thing like  liveliness  into  that  temple,  after  midnight.  It 
was  doubtless  unreasonable  to  expect  that  the  necessarily 
small  staff  of  a  small  club  should  be  ready  both  for  day 
and  night  duties  ;  but  the  want  of  such  a  jilace  of  resort 
had  long  been  experienced,  and  it  was  determined  it  should 
be  supplied  in  the  best  way  possible.  "  Offley's,"  a  fa- 
mous tavern  of  former  times,  situate  in  Henrietta  Street, 
Covent  Garden,  had  fallen  upon  evil  days,  its  custom  was 


154  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

gone,  its  name  almost  forgotten  ;  the  position  for  our  pur- 
pose was  most  desirable,  and  the  premises  were  secured 
for  the  "Fielding." 

I  shall  best  give  an  idea  of  the  members  of  this  once 
famous  club  by  quoting  from  a  descriptive  poem,  written 
by  Albert  Smith,  with  a  little  of  my  collaboration,  about 
the  winter  of  '52.  It  was  evoked  by  a  little  joke  among 
ourselves  at  the  expense  of  one  of  our  members,  which 
need  not  be  recalled  : 

I. 
There  was  high  festival  that  night  within  Saint  Offley's  Hall 
(For  so  they  term  a  place  where  sons  of  night  hold  festival) ; 
There  was  Sir  Armytage  '  of  race ;  and  Arcliy  ^  on  the  go 
(He  never  stays  long  anywhere),  and  Albert  ^  of  the  "  show." 


J.  W.  D.*  was  there,  so  great  in  operatic  mj-th, 
And  using  the  club  note-paper  was  Arthur,  known  as  "Smith  ;"* 
And  with  the  Maelstrom's  wind-borne  spray  still  glistening  in  his  hair, 
The  bold  Norwegian  fisherman,  great  Pleasant,*  took  his  chair. 


And  Dan,'  who  cried  in  quick,  sharp  tones,  that  never  seemed  to  stop, 
"  Here  !  waiter !  when  the  divil  are  ye  goiug  to  bring  my  chop  ?" 

'  Sir  George  Armytage,  Bart.,  of  Kirklees  Hall,  Yorks,  and  Cambridge 
Square,  well  known  in  social,  turf,  and  theatrical  circles ;  one  of  my  oldest 
and  kindest  friends,  and  almost  the  only  survivor,  save  the  principals,  of 
tiiose  present  at  my  wedding. 

'  Andrew  Arccdeckne,  a  quaint,  kind  -  hearted  oddity,  of  whom  I  shall 
often  have  to  speak.  He  was  the  original  of  Foker  in  "Pcndennis." 
Bead. 

3  Albert  Smitli.  Tiic  Egyptian  Hall  entertainment  was  always  spoken 
of  by  us  as  "  the  show."     Dead. 

*  J.  W.  Davison,  for  many  years  cliief  musical  critic  of  the  Times. 
'  Arthur  Smith,  Alljcrt's  brother.     Dead. 

•  Sir  Charles  Taylor,  Bart.,  of  Hollyoonibe,  and  King  Street,  St.  James's, 
who  always  rented  a  salmon-fislung  in  Norway.  Called  "  Old  Pleasant," 
from  his  invariable  cynicism.  Antliony  Trollope  lias  well  descrilied  him  : 
"  A  man  rough  of  tongue,  brus<|ue  in  his  manners,  odious  to  those  who 
di.slikchim,  somewiiat  inclhied  to  tyranny,  lie  is  the  prince  of  friends,  hon- 
est as  the  sun,  and  as  open-Iianded  as  Ciiarity  itself."  This,  by-the-way,  is 
nn  excellent  descrij)tion  of  the  writer,  Trollope  iiimself.     Dead. 

'  Daniel  O'Connell,  youngest  son  of  tlie  "  Liberator,"  then  M.P.  for  Tra- 
lee,  now  a  Special  Commissioner  of  Income-tax. 


THE   INFLUENCE  OF  "PENDENNIS."  I55 

Ami  gentle  Jim,^  who  tends  the  Screws,  up  fifty  pairs  of  stairs, 
And  Collingwood,^  who  never  goes  to  bed  but  unawares. 


There  was  the  gallant  Henry,'"  and  bold  Brownlow  "  standing  by, 
Deep  in  a  talk  with  the  great  Mons.'^  of  Wagner  and  of  Gye, 
And  good  old  Mac  '^ — fair  Strasburg's  pride — who  everybody  knows, 
And  Vivian  '■*  of  the  flowing  locks — so  different  to  Joe's  1  '* 


There  were  four  Williams  there.  First,  he  with  voice  of  deepest  miglit,'^ 
Who  says,  "  I'll  tell  you  what  it  is  "  (and  AVilliam  tells  you  right) ; 
And  he  of  Willow-pattern  fame,"  who  ne'er  was  known  to  shout; 
And  he  the  leading  journal's  pet — terror  of  Ingram's  trout."* 


*  James  Lyster  O'Beirne,  the  secretary  of  the  General  Screw  Steam  Ship- 
ping Company ;  frequently  mentioned  in  this  volume. 

*  Henry  Collingwood  Ibbctson,  a  great  friend  of  mine,  and  one  of  the 
gentlest  and  kindest  of  human  beings.     Dead. 

^^  Sir  Henry  Percival  de  Bathe,  Bart.,  then  Captain  de  Bathe,  of  the  Scots 
Fusilier  Guards. 

"  Colonel  Brownlow  Knox,  of  the  Scots  Fusilier  Guards,  and  M.P.  for 
Marlow.  He  was  pecuniarily  interested  at  that  time  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
newly-established  Royal  Italian  Opera.     Dead. 

1^  Mons.  Jullien.     See  ante.     Dead. 

"  Tom  Macdonald,  formerly  of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  then  secretary  to 
the  Canada  Trust  and  Loan  Company.  The  reference  to  Strasburg  I  have 
forgotten.  A  line  in  Thackeray's  "Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse,"  "And  laugh- 
ing Tom  is  laughing  yet,"  referred  to  T.  M.     Dead. 

'^  George  Henry  Lewes,  at  that  time  writing  as  "Vivian"  in  the  Leader. 
Dead. 

'5  J.  M.  Langford,  Messrs.  Blackwood's  London  representative.     Dead. 

1^  William  Bolland,  son  of  Mr.  Justice  BoUand,  a  big,  heavy,  hand- 
some man,  of  much  peculiar  humor.  He  always  spoke  of  himself  as 
"William."  He  was  the  original  of  Fred  Bayhani  in  "The  Newcomes  ;" 
and  I  ventured  to  reproduce  him  as  William  Bowker  in  "  Land  at  Last." 
Dead. 

"  William  P.  Halo,  part  author  with  Frank  Talfourd  of  the  burlesque 
"  The  Willow  Pattern  Plate."  Often  mentioned  herein.  He  was  a  very 
loud  talker.     Dead. 

"*  William  Howard  Russell,  LL.D.,  the  doyen  of  special  correspondents. 
Tills  was  before  he  won  his  spurs  in  the  Crimea ;  and  then  he  was  only 
known  as  a  very  clever  graphic  reporter  and  amusing  Irish  humorist.  He 
was  a  great  fisherman,  and  had  the  run  of  some  water  belonging  to  Mr. 
Ingram,  M.P. 


156  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 


And  he,  again,  the  bright-hued  Artist-king  of  Fairyland ; " 

And  with  liim  was  good  brother  Bob,-"  just  come  up  from  the  Strand  ; 

And  Walter '■'^  the  Enthusiastic  spoke,  with  figures  rare. 

To  EOW  '^'^  of  the  "  bright  water-jug  " — he  didn't  use  it  there. 


And  Tom,  whose  pointed  pen  supplies  the  Stage  and  Board  of  Health,''^ 
And  Peter,  2^  from  whose  hand-book  mines  great  Murray  draws  much 

wealth ; 
And  Frank,''^  who  made  an  awful  pun,  the  whiles  his  grog  he  drank, 
As  Charley  "  told  how  Kean  that  day  had  called  him  also  "  frank." 


And  Cuthbert  of  the  ringlets  came  ^^  (his  namesake  was  not  there, 
With  certain  "  cheerful  snobs  "  that  day  he  tasted  City  fare) ;  '^^ 
And  stout  Sir  Evan  *'  shook  his  sides  ;  with  him  the  culprit's  friend, 
Who  saves  "the  prisoner  at  the  bar"  from  many  an  awkward  end.  2« 


19  William  Beverly. 

'"  Robert  Roxby,  then  acting  at  the  Lyceum.     Dead. 

■■"  Walter  Lacy,  the  evergreen  dealer  in  tropes  and  metaphors. 

**  F.  0.  Ward,  familiarly  known  as  Fow.  A  very  brilliant  man,  leador- 
writer  on  the  2%ncs,  and  a  pioneer  of  sanitary  reform.  The  "bright  w:i- 
ter-jug"  was  one  of  his  special  hobbies.     Dead. 

*3  Tom  Taylor,  secretary  of  what  was  then  the  Board  of  Health,  after- 
wards the  Local  Government  Office.     Dead. 

'^*  Peter  Cunningham,  F.S.A.,  author  of  the  "  Hand-book  of  London,"  etc. 
Dead. 

^^  Frank  Talfourd,  an  inveterate  punster.     Dead. 

'« Charles  Lamb  Kenney.  He  said  one  night  at  the  Fielding,  with  an  ;iir 
of  great  simplicitj-, "  I  don't  think  I  can  have  made  myself  agreeable  this 
evening.  I  w:is  dining  with  Charles  Kean,  who  was  in  great  force,  and  told 
some  excellent  stories  ;  and  I  said,  what  a  pity  it  was  that  he,  who  was  such 
ii  capital  fellow  off  tlie  stage,  shouUl  be  such  a  bad  actor!"  "And  what 
did  Kean  .say  ?"  we  asked.  "  Well,"  said  Kenney,  "  I  don't  think  Kean 
liked  it  much ;  but  all  he  said  was, '  You  are  pleased  to  be  frank  this 
evening,  Keinicy.'  "     Detul. 

"  Cuthltert  Ellison,  barrister;  afterwards  a  London  police-magistrate. 
Dead. 

"«  Captain  Cuthbert  Ellison,  of  the  (Jrenadier  Guards.     Dead. 

•"  Sir  Eviin  Macken/ic,  Hart.     Jfea</. 

^  Either  S4.Tgeanl  Ballantine  or  Huron  Ilinldieston.  Botli  were  members 
of  the  Fielding,  and  both  at  that  time  were  often  "  Special "  at  the  Old 
Bailey. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  "PENDENNIS."  157 

IX. 

And  "handsome  Jack,"  to  whoic  dear  girls  and  swells  his  life  Punch 

owes ;  •'' 
And  Leigh,  the  sole  jeune  iiremier  that  our  stage  at  present  knows  ;  3' 
And  he,  the  pride  of  that  great  Sunday  print  whose  columns  range 
From  vestries  of  St.  Fancras  to  what  "  novel  "  is  "  or  strange."  ^^ 


Another  Arthur,  too,  of  calm  straightforward  sense  was  there ;  '^* 
And  Tom,  who  licks  the  cabmen  when  they  ask  beyond  their  fare;  ^* 
And  Tom  again,  whose  soft  dark  curls  the  march  of  time  disdain ;  ^* 
And  he  who  is  so  well  beloved  by  Morris  and  Delane.  ^'' 


The  silver-toned  snuff-taking  Dick  of  some  young  beauty  spoke  ;^^ 
The  excellent  "  Chat  Iluant "  laughed — good  audience  for  a  joke  ^' — 
At  something  wicked  Shirley  said,  who  has  so  much  to  do  ■*" 
(He  writes  the  Morning  Chronicle  each  day,  the  whole  way  through). 


And  Edmund  was  instructing  all,  how  that  the  old  C.C.,'" 
Transported  for  their  crimes,  were  wrecked  with  rocks  upon  their  lee ; 

2'  John  Leech.     Dead. 

^-  Leigh  Murray.     Dead. 

^2  Thomas  Behan,  editor  of  the  Observe)'.     Dead. 

^  Arthur  Pratt  Barlow. 

^^  Tom  Buckland,  nephew  of  the  Dean  of  Westminster,  and  very  handy 
with  his  fists.     Now  assistant-editor  of  the  Calcutta  Englishman. 

^^  Thomas  Knox  Holmes. 

2'  Thomas  W.  Bowlby,  at  that  time  a  solicitor,  and  intimate  friend  of  the 
gentlemen  named.  A  particularly  agreeable,  pleasant  man.  Mr.  Bowlby, 
afterwards,  in  the  year  '60,  accompanied  the  allied  English  and  French 
expedition  against  the  Chinese,  as  representative  of  the  Times  ;  and  being, 
with  others,  taken  prisoner,  was  barbarously  murdered.     Dead. 

^'^  Richard  Arabin,  son  of  Sergeant  Arabin,  well  known  about  London. 
Dead. 

'^'^  Edward  F.  Smyth  Pigott,  now  her  Majesty's  Examiner  of  Plays.  "  Chat 
Huant "  was  Mr.  Pigott's  nom  de  plume  in  his  own  journal,  the  Leader. 

*'^  Charles  Shirley  Brooks.  Political  and  social  subjects,  literary  and  art 
criticism,  jokes  and  verse-writing,  all  were  within  the  range  of  this  admi- 
rable journalist.     Dead. 

■"  I  used  to  give  a  kind  of  little  entertainment,  with  imitations  of  various 
members  of  the  old  Cider  Cellars  Club,  who  were  supposed  to  have  suffered 
shipwreck. 


158  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

How  one  swell  bullied  "  Mathew  !" — he  who  haunts  the  Garrick  Hall, 
And  hours  for  his  master  waits,  who  never  comes  at  all. 


XTI. 

And  then  there  came  a  mighty  man,  who,  'tis  but  fair  to  state, 
Among  the  small  is  Affable,  though  Great  among  the  great — 
The  good  Pendennis.  ^^ 

Other  prominent  members  of  the  ckib  were  Jolm  Bidwell 
and  the  Hon.  W.  Grey  of  the  Foreign  Office,  the  Latter 
attach^  at  Stockhohn  ;  Morgan  John  O'Connell,  nephew 
of  the  Liberator  and  M.P.  for  Kerry  ;  John  E.  Jones,  an 
excellent  sculptor  and  Irish  humorist  ;  John  C.  Deane, 
who  held  some  position  in  regard  to  Great  Exhibitions 
generally,  and  who  sang  divinely  ;  Luard,  a  clever  artist, 
who  died  young  ;  G.  L.  Hall,  also  an  artist ;  J.  C.  O'Dowd, 
now  Deputy  Judge-advocate-general,  at  that  time  assist- 
ant-editor of  the  Globe,  then  a  Liberal  organ  ;  and  Cap- 
tains Charles  Seymour  and  Augustus  (Jerry)  Meyrick  of 
the  Scots  Fusiliers. 

There  must  have  been  some  peculiar  attraction  about 
the  place  and  its  associations,  for  I  do  not  think  I  ever 
saw  men  work  so  heartily  to  achieve  a  success  for  any- 
thing of  the  kind  as  did  its  members.  For  the  first  eigh- 
teen months  of  its  existence,  save,  of  course,  during  the 
autumn  vacation,  one  was  sure  of  finding  a  gathering 
there  of  a  night,  small,  perhaps,  but  always  attractive  ; 
and  it  was  eminently  a  place  in  which  men  cast  aside 
their  ordinary  M^ork-a-day  shell.  There  was  very  little 
singing,  and  recitations  wl)ich  are  noAV  so  common  would 
not  have  been  endured  for  an  instant ;  but  there  was 
abundance  of  good  talk,  both  general  conversation  and 
private  chat.  I  well  recollect  coming  in  late  one  night, 
when  Charles  Kenney  and  George  Henry  Lewes  were  the 
only  occupants  of  the  room.  They  were  chatting  over 
llie  fire,  literally  "  i)laying  at" — as  children  say  —  being 
French  peasants,  and  discussing  tlie  prospects  of  an  apoc- 
ryphal vintage  in  a  Burgundy  jor^^o/.s.     Occasionally  there 

•"  Of  course,  Timckcray.     Dead. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  "PENDENNIS."  159 

would  be  a  field-night,  when  a  mock-trial  Avould  be  im- 
provised, or  some  rare  story-telling  ;  but  there  was  quite 
enough  amusement  to  make  me  a  regular  nightly  visitor, 
and  it  was  not,  I  fear,  till  1  a.m.  that  what  we  used  to 
call  the  "North-western  Mail"  was  ready  for  departure  ; 
said  North-western  Mail  being  a  four-wheel  cab,  which 
first  deposited  Albert  and  Arthur  in  Percy  Street,  dropped 
me  in  Gloucester  Place,  and  concluded  its  journey  by 
leaving  Sir  George  Armytage  in  Cambridge  Square. 

The  "  Mont  Blanc  "  entertainment  was  produced  at  the 
Egyptian  Hall  on  the  15th  March,  1852,  with  an  amount 
of  success  which  was  totally  unexpected.     Since  the  days 
of  Mathews  and  my  father  the  monopolylogue  had  fallen 
into  desuetude,  and  though  an  attempt  at  resuscitation  of 
it  had  been  made  by  a  Mr.  Woodin,  with  a  performance 
which  he  called  his  "  Carpet-bag  and  Sketch-book,"  his 
claim  to  success  lay  rather  in  the  rapidity  of  his  costume- 
changes  than  in  the  excellence  of  his  impersonation.     Al- 
bert Smith's  appeal  to  the  public  was  made  from  a  totally 
different  stand-point.     He  had  a  good  circulating-library 
renown  as  a  novelist,  "  Ledbury  "  and  "  Christopher  Tad- 
pole "  having  been  widely  read  ;  his  songs  for  John  Parry 
had  introduced  him  to  another  section   of  the  public  ; 
while  his  latest  productions — shilling  "Social  Zoologies," 
a  natural  history  of  "  The  Gent,"  then  of  "  The  Ballet- 
girl,"  and  then  of  "The  Flirt" — had  achieved  vast  popu- 
larity ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  his  publisher,  worthy  Mr. 
Bogue,  who  had  paid  him  £10  for  "  The  Gent,"  a  few 
months  after  gave  him  £100  for  "The  Flirt."     He  was 
popular  in  literary  and  theatrical  circles,  and  the  ascent 
liad  been  much  talked  of  in  "  society,"  one  of  his  col- 
leagues in  the  adventure  having  been  the  Hon.  Lionel 
Sackville  West,  who  is  now  our  Minister  at  Washington. 
Then  the  whole  tone  of  the  performance  was  good,  pleas- 
antly and  conversationally  given  as  a  kind  of  one-sided 
chat;  the  painted  views  by  William  Bevei'ly  were  admi- 
rable ;  and  lastly,  the  comfort  of  the  audience  had  been 
thoroughly  attended  to.     They  sat  on  good  chairs,  in  a 
room  well  carpeted  and  curtained,  charmingly  decorated, 
and  properly  ventilated;  and  there  were  no  "harpies,"  as 


160  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Albert  used  to  call  them,  catching  at  fees  for  cloaks,  pro- 
grammes, or  what-not.  The  abolition  of  fees  to  attend- 
ants, now  so  general,  was  introduced  by  Albert  Smith. 

Shortly  after  I  had  seen  this  success  well  assured,  and 
had  shared  in  some  of  the  festivities  with  which  it  was 
celebrated,  I  started  with  Mr.  O'Beirne  for  a  ten  days' 
holiday  in  Paris.  We  put  up  at  the  then  existing,  but 
since  destroyed,  Hotel  des  Princes  in  the  Rue  Richelieu, 
and  had  what  may  emphatically  be  called  "  a  good  time." 
There  we  were  joined  by  Tom  Macdonald,  who  knew  his 
Paris  from  the  old  Thackeray  days.  The  famous  house 
in  ''the  New  Street  of  the  Little  Fields"  had  indeed 
vanished,  but  there  were  others  famous  then,  but  which 
now  7i'existent  2}hcs,  and  of  them  we  made  frequent  trial. 
Among  them  were  the  old  Cafe  de  Paris  on  the  Italian 
Boulevard;  and  Philippe's  in  tlie  Rue  Montorgueil,  Avith 
his  ceufs  hrouilles  aux  truffes  ;  and  his  next-door  neighbor, 
the  Roehers  de  Cancale  ;  and  Brebant's— though  that  is, 
of  course,  still  going  —  where  we  met  some  journalists, 
one  of  whom  nearly  made  me  faint  with  delight  by  al- 
luding to  me  as  "Monsieur  notre  confrere."  There  was 
a  Closerie  des  Lilas  in  those  days,  and  a  garden  at  Asni- 
eres,  the  spring  opening  of  which  we  attended,  and  joined 
in  a  persistent  chorus  of  "Des  lamp-i-ons !"  lasting  for 
hours,  because  the  promised  illuminations  were  not  forth- 
coming. 

But  what  remains  freshest  in  my  mind  in  connection 
witli  tliat  Paris  visit  is  going  to  see  the  "Dame  aux  Ca- 
melias,"  which  had  been  produced  three  months  before, 
and  was  then  in  the  full  tide  of  its  success  at  the  Vaude- 
ville, with  Fechter  and  JMadame  Doclie  in  the  principal 
characters.  I  road  soniowlu're,  a  few  days  ago,  that  tliis 
is  a  very  dull  and  stupid  old  play,  and  I  dare  say  it  may 
be  ;  but  I  know  when  I  first  saw  it  I  was  more  moved 
than  I  ever  had  been  by  a  theatrical  performance.  I  was 
not  twenty-one  tlien,  and  the  sad  fortunes  of  a  consump- 
tive lorcttc  were  more  likely  to  interest  me  than  they 
Avould  now;  and,  again,  such  realistic  acting,  as  exhibited 
both  by  the  man  and  woman,  I  liad  never  seen.  I  caji 
Hcc  Doche  standing  before  the  fireplace,  aehcvant  la  toi- 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  "PENDENNIS."  161 

lette  de  ses  angles,  and  listening  with  delight  to  Armand's 
narration  of  his  visits  of  inquiry  during  her  illness  ;  I 
can  see  Fechter  in  the  ball-room  scene  gliding  to  her  side, 
and  pleading,  "  ]Marguerito,  j'ai  ]afi6vre!"  I  can  see  him, 
as  the  act-drop  falls  flinging  the  bank-notes  before  her, 
and  hear  his  bitter  cry,  "J'ai  paye  cette  femme  !"  My 
companions  were  equally  impressed,  and  we  strode  out 
of  the  theatre  in  silence,  each  occupied  with  his  own  re- 
flections. So  that  we  were  not  best  pleased  when  an  ac- 
quaintance, a  chattering  Englishman,  tacked  himself  on 
to  us,  and,  first  exclaiming  that  he  "  didn't  think  much 
of  it,"  wanted  to  know  what  that  fellow  was  doing  when 
he  threw  the  money  about,  as  "  he  spoke  so  infernally 
quick,  I  could  not  make  out  what  he  said." 

I  continued  my  contributions  to  the  Court  Journal 
with  perfect  regularity  and  great  pleasure  to  myself  dur- 
ing the  year,  before  the  end  of  which  I  had  launched 
out  on  to  other  literary  seas.  After  the  death  of  Lady 
Blessington,  the  annual  which  she  had  established,  the 
Keepsake,  was  brouglit  out  by  her  niece,  the  lovely  and 
accomplished  Miss  Marguerite  Power,  who,  for  old  friend- 
ship's sake,  was  supported  by  the  leaders  among  the 
old  Gore  House  set.  Tennyson,  Thackeray,  and  Bulwer 
Lytton  contributed  to  the  first  number  published  un- 
der her  editorship,  so  that,  though  there  was  no  hono- 
rarium, it  may  be  imagined  I  was  tolerably  i)roud  when 
an  Ingoldsby  poem  of  mine  was  accepted  by  Miss  Power, 
to  whom  I  had  been  presented  by  Albert  Smith,  and  I 
found  myself  in  the  Keepsake  for  '53,  in  company  with 
Thackeray,  Monckton  Milnes,  Barry  Cornwall,  Landor, 
Chorley,  and  other  well-known  names.  Kindly  Angus 
Reach  selected  the  poem  for  a  few  hearty  encouraging 
words  in  his  review  of  the  annual  in  the  Morning  Chron- 
icle, and  kindly  Shirley  Brooks,  who  had  seen  the  notice 
in  proof  at  the  Chronicle  office,  told  me  of  it  at  a  supper 
at  Keeley's,  and  bade  me  look  out  for  it  next  day.  That 
was  the  first  time  any  work  of  mine  was  noticed  by  the 
press.  To  the  kindness  of  Albert  Smitli  I  also  owed  an 
introduction  to  Mr.  John  Timbs,  then  sub-editing  the  Il- 
lustrated London  News,  who,  in  his  turn,  presented  me  to 


162  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

his  cWef,  Dr.  Charles  Mackay,  with  the  result  that,  when 
the  next  Christmas  number  of  the  I.  L.  JSf.  was  being 
thought  of,  two  proofs  of  cuts  were  forwarded  to  me, 
with  a  request  that  I  would  "  write  up  "  some  verses  ap- 
plicable to  them,  which,  of  course,  I  did,  and  for  which 
I  was  very  well  paid.  For  several  years  I  wrote  verses 
and  stories  for  the  Christmas  Illustrated. 

With  the  exception  of  the  usual  childhood's  maladies 
— measles,  scarlet-fever,  etc. — I  enjoyed  very  fair  health 
ixp  to  this  point ;  but  in  the  very  early  days  of  1853  I  was 
laid  up  for  six  weeks  with  a  carbuncle  at  the  back  of  my 
neck,  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  be  serious.  As  it 
was,  it  caused  the  postponement — though  not  for  long — 
of  an  impending  and  important  event,  my  marriage.  Very 
soon  after  making  Albert  Smith's  acquaintance,  we  made 
two  of  a  large  party  which  went  to  the  evening  exhibition 
of  a  Diorama  of  the  Holy  Land,  at  St.  George's  Gallery, 
Hyde  Park  Corner.  By  him  I  was  presented  to  a  young 
lady,  one  of  the  party,  with  whom  I  immediately  fell 
desperately  in  love.  After  an  engagement  of  twelve 
months  we  were  married,  before  I  had  completed  my 
twenty-second  year,  at  Holy  Trinity  Church,  Brompton, 
on  the  14th  April,  1853.  Albert  was  my  "best  man," 
and  my  mother,  Arthur  Smith,  T.  Buckland,  Sir  George 
Armytage,  and  J.  L.  O'Beirne  were  among  my  friends 
present  at  the  ceremony. 


EARLY  MARRIED   LIFE.  163 


CHAPTER  VII. 

EAELY    MARRIED    LIFE. 
1853-1857. 

From  a  brief  honeymoon  passed  at  Bath,  Teignmouth, 
and  Torquay,  I  was  recalled  by  a  summons  from  one  of 
my  brothers-in-law,  who  wanted  to  see  me  on  special  busi- 
ness, I  found,  on  seeing  him,  that  he  thought  he  had 
sufficient  influence  to  obtain  for  me  the  appointment  of 
secretary  to  an  insurance  office  in  the  City,  which  had 
just  become  vacant.  This  ofl^er,  after  due  consideration, 
I  declined.  I  should  not  have  been  fitted  for  the  place ; 
and  though  the  salary  would  have  been  more  than  what 
I  was  actually  receiving  at  the  Post-office,  there  were  no 
prospective  advantages,  while  I  should  have  had  no  chance 
of  pursuing  my  literary  calling,  from  which  I  hoped  to 
derive  both  pleasure  and  profit. 

When  my  wife  and  I  returned  to  town,  we  took  up  our 
abode  in  a  small  house  where  for  the  past  year  or  two  I 
had  lived  witli  my  mother,  who,  with  that  perfect  unself- 
ishness that  characterized  her  life,  made  it  over  to  us,  and 
agreed  to  pay  the  rent.  Her  intention  was  to  spend  some 
time  in  the  country,  and  before  we  came  back  she  had 
already  settled  herself  for  the  summer  at  Henfield,  a  vil- 
lage in  Sussex,  near  Hurstpierpoint. 

Our  house  was  in  what  was  then  called  Gloucester 
Place,  New  Road,  at  immediate  right  angles  to,  but  hav- 
ing nothing  in  common  with,  Gloucester  Place,  Portman 
Square,  a  far  grander  locality.  The  New  Road  has  since 
been  subdivided  into  Marylebone  and  Euston  Roads,  but 
then  it  was  the  New  Road,  stretching  from  Paddington 
to  Islington,  and  our  house  was  about  a  mile  from  the 
Paddington  end.     It  was  small,  but  so  was  the  rent,  sixty 


164  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LO.VDON^  LIFE. 

pounds  a  year,  and  it  was  quite  large  enough  for  my  wife 
and  me  and  our  two  servants.  It  had  a  little  garden  in 
front,  between  it  and  the  road,  with  a  straight  line  of 
flagstones  leading  direct  from  the  gate  to  the  door-stej^s, 
and  bits  of  flower-beds  (in  wliich  nothing  ever  grew)  in- 
tersected by  little  gravel-paths  about  a  foot  vride.  Tliis 
garden  was  a  source  of  great  delight  to  my  humorous 
friends.  Albert  Smith  would  be  seen  carefully  putting- 
one  foot  before  the  other,  in  order  that  he  might  not  stc}) 
off  the  path,  and,  after  v/andering  in  and  out  between  the 
little  beds,  would  feign  excessive  fatigue  on  his  arrival 
at  the  house,  declaring  he  had  been  "lost  in  the  shrub- 
bery." Arthur  would  suggest  that  wc  should  have  a  guide 
on  the  spot  to  show  visitors  the  nearest  way  ;  while  Col- 
lingwood  Ibbetson  hoped  we  intended  giving  some  out- 
door fetes  in  the  summer,  assuring  us  that  the  " band'of 
the  Life  Guards  would  look  splendid  on  that,"  pointing 
to  a  bit  of  turf  about  the  size  of  a  pocket-handkerchief. 
When  the  street-door  was  opened  wide  back,  it  entirely 
absorbed  the  hall,  and  we  could  not  get  out  of  the  dining- 
room  door ;  but  then  we  could,  of  course,  always  pass  out 
through  the  "  study,"  a  little  room  like  a  cistern,  which 
just  held  ray  desk  and  one  chair. 

There  was  a  very  small  yard  at  the  back,  opening  on 
to  a  set  of  stables  which  had  their  real  entrance  in  the 
mews  ;  but  we  were  compelled  to  cover  all  our  back  win- 
dows with  putty,  imitative  of  ground-glass,  on  wliich  we 
stuck  cut-out  paper  designs  of  birds  and  flowers,  as  these 
looked  directly  on  the  rooms  over  the  stables,  inhabited 
by  a  coachman  and  his  family  ;  and  the  sight  of  a  stalwart 
man  at  the  opposite  window,  shaving  himself  in  very 
dingy  shirt-sleeves,  within  a  few  feet  of  your  nose,  was 
not  wholly  agreeable.  We  were  rather  stifled  in  the  uj)- 
stairs  rooms,  owing  to  low  ceilings  and  a  diftidence  we 
felt  as  to  opening  the  windows  ;  for  the  New  Road  was 
a  dusty  thoroughfare,  and  the  immediate  vicinity  of  a 
(•al)-stand,  though  handy  on  some  occasions,  lets  one  into 
rather  a  larger  knowledge  of  the  stock  of  expletives  witli 
which  the  English  language  abounds  than  is  good  for 
polite  ears.     But  when  we  knew  that  the  coaclinian  was 


EARLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  165 

out,  Ave  used  to  open  the  back  windows  and  grow  very 
enthusiastic  over  "  fresh  air  from  Hampstead  and  High- 
gate,"  which,  nevertheless,  always  seemed  to  me  to  have 
a  somewhat  stably  twang. 

However,  we  were  very  happy  in  that  little  house,  and 
neither  we  nor  our  friends  took  much  heed  of  its  small- 
ness  or  lack  of  conveniences.  Our  menage  was  humble 
enough,  and  our  "good  plain  cook"  was  not  always  to  be 
trusted.  I  recollect  one  day,  when  a  boiled  leg  of  mut- 
ton had  made  its  appearance  in  a  very  "gory"  state, 
Albert  went  down  into  the  kitchen,  and  with  his  own 
hands  prepared  an  excellent  broil.  I  could  not  afford 
good  wine,  and  would  not  give  bad  ;  but  there  was  an  ever- 
flowing  barrel  of  Romford  ale,  and  some  Irish  whiskey 
which  I  procured  through  Mayne  Reid  —  "Bushmills" 
was  its  name — which  was  highly  esteemed.  All  my  old 
Fielding  friends — the  Smiths,  Ibbetson,  Sir  George  Army- 
tage,  W.  H.  Russell,  "Boldero"  Goodlake,  Peter  Cun- 
ningham, AV.  P.  Hale,  O'Beirne,  and  T.  K,  Holmes — would 
look  in  from  time  to  time ;  as  also  Mayne  Reid,  W.  W. 
Fenn,  who  had  known  me  years  before,  William  Coxon, 
of  the  13th  Hussars,  brother  of  one  of  my  colleagues  at  the 
Post-office,  and  Herbert  Harrington,  with  whom  I  after- 
wards collaborated  in  dramatic  work. 

We  went  out  a  good  deal ;  there  were  frequent  sud- 
denly improvised  suppers  at  Albert's  rooms,  or  dinners 
at  Verrey's.  Sundays  we  almost  invariably  spent  in  the 
company  of  the  Keeleys,  either  dining  at  their  house  at 
Brompton  Square,  or  joining  with  them  in  some  excur- 
sion to  Richmond,  Hampton,  Thames  Ditton,  etc.  We 
had  some  delightful  Sundays  at  Albert's  cottage  at  Chert- 
sey,  whither  we  would  drive  on  a  private  omnibus  or 
coach,  and  dine  in  a  tent  in  the  garden.  One  large  party 
there  I  remember,  at  which  it  had  been  whispered  Kos- 
suth, then  in  England,  would  be  present,  and  there  was 
great  disappointment  at  his  non-arrival.  In  the  middle  of 
dinner,  however,  there  was  a  great  stir,  and  Albert,  making 
his  way  througli  the  tent,  returned  with  the  distinguished 
Hungarian.  It  was,  in  reality,  Tom  Taylor,  who,  admi- 
rably disguised  with  slouched  hat  and  beard — at  that  time 


166  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

T.  T.  was  clean  shaven — delivered  a  most  wonderful  com- 
posite speech,  a  few  real  German  words  mixed  up  M'ith 
much  English,  pronounced  like  and  sounding  like  German, 
to  the  general  delight.  We  spent  a  few  delightful  days 
with  Ibbetson,  who  had  taken  a  cottage  at  Hampton 
Wick,  and  used  to  run  down  to  Brighton,  to  a  cheap  little 
lodging  we  had  found  there,  whenever  we  could  spare 
the  time  and  the  money. 

One  of  our  earliest  and  kindest  friends  was  Mrs.  Milner 
Gibson,  M'ho  never  had  a  reception  without  sending  us  a 
card.  A  genuine  instinct  of  hospitality,  an  innate  good 
feeling,  the  pleasure  that  arises  from  giving  pleasure  to 
others,  the  happiness  of  seeing  those  around  her  happy, 
were  the  sole  end  and  aim  of  the  lady  who  presided  over 
the  miscellaneous  company  that  used  to  meet  together  in 
the  corner  house  of  Wilton  Crescent.  Louis  Blanc,  Maz- 
zini.  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn,  Iluddleston,  Q.C.;  Phinii, 
Q.C.;  Planche,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Torrcns,  Sir  Charles  and 
Lady  Eastlake,  Thackeray,  Monckton  Milnes,  Doyle,  Al- 
bert and  Arthur  Smith,  Landseer  and  Leech,  Swinton,thc 
Charles  Keans,  Mrs.  Sartoris,  Costa,  Benedict,  Leighton, 
the  Henry  Reeves,  Pigott,  Halle,  Biletta,  Palgravc  Simp- 
son, Chorley,  the  Alfred  AVigans,  Mrs.  Proctor,  Mrs.  Dick- 
ens— these,  together  with  a  troop  of  L-ishmen,  Radical 
members  of  Parliament,  and  foreign  exiles,  were  represent- 
ative guests.  It  was  no  mere  aifair  of  small-talk,  ices,  and 
lemonade.  A  substantial  supper  Avas  a  feature  of  the 
evening,  and  the  foreigners  had  a  pleasant  way  of  rushing 
down  directly  that  meal  was  served  and  sweeping  the 
table.  It  was  here  that  Leech,  returning  flushed  from  an 
encounter  with  the  linkmaii,  told  me  laugliingly  he  would 
not  liave  minded  if  "Mr.  Leech's  carriage"  had  been 
called,  but  that  the  fellow  would  roar  out  "  The  keb  from 
Nottin'  '111 !" 

Another  house  wliere  we  were  made  very  welcome  Avas 
Mr.  Justice  Talfourd's,  in  Ru'^sell  S(]uare,  wliere  the  com- 
pany was  pretty  much  the  same,  with  fewer  foreigners 
and  more  Bar,  and  where  the  kindly  liost,  with  sliort- 
cropped,  iron-gray  hair  and  l)oaming  face,  Avould  ask  liis 
friends,  and  specially  any  strangers,  to  "do  him  the  ])lea8- 


EARLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  167 

ure  of  dwinking  a  glass  of  wine  with  liim,"  from  the 
dumpy  little  Steinwcin  flagon  he  held  in  his  hand. 

Meanwhile  I  v/as  not  idle.  I  continued  my  regular 
work  for  the  Court  Journal  and  wrote  a  few  dramatic 
criticisms  for  the  Leader,  a  brilliant  but  not  very  long- 
lived  journal,  which  my  friend  Pigott  owned,  and  to 
which  George  Henry  Lewes,  E.  M.  Whitty,  and  other 
clever  men  contributed.  I  had  also  found  my  way  into 
several  periodicals,  notably  into  Bentleifs  Miscellany,  in 
which  appeared  my  first  tale -essay,  "My  New-year's 
Eve."  I  was  much  pleased  at  this,  for  Bentley's  Jfiscel- 
lany  had  been  portion  of  my  earliest  reading,  almost  as 
a  child ;  and  when  I  first  went  to  the  Post-ofiice  I  used  to 
lunch  at  a  coffee-shop,  long  since  pulled  down,  in  the  first 
floor  of  which  there  was  a  large  collection  of  greasy,  well- 
thumbed  3Iiscellany  volumes,  which  were  my  delight. 
Mr.  Bentley,  to  whom  I  was  introduced  by  Albert  Smith, 
took  two  or  three  of  my  articles,  and  as  many  more 
appeared  in  Chambers's  Journal,  then,  I  think,  under  the 
editorship  of  Leitch  Ritchie. 

I  Avas  very  anxious  that  these  sketches  should  appear 
as  a  book,  and  when  I  thought  I  had  suflicient  material,  I 
went,  with  an  introduction  from  Albert,  to  Mr.  Bogue, 
the  publisher,  at  86  Fleet  Street,  and  asked  him  if  he 
would  undertake  the  little  volume.  Mr.  Bogue  received 
me  very  pleasantly  :  I  little  thought  while  chatting  with 
him  in  his  office  at  the  back  of  the  shop  that,  on  that  very 
spot  exactly  twenty  years  later,  the  first  numbers  of  the 
World  would  be  published.  I  left  the  "copy"  with  Mr. 
Bogue,  and  when  I  next  saw  him  he  told  me  he  was  will- 
ing to  undertake  the  venture  at  his  own  risk  ;  as  I  was 
almost  utterly  unknown,  he  could  not  give  me  anything 
for  it,  but  he  would  produce  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  would 
be  useful  as  an  advertisement  for  me.  To  this  I  agreed, 
and  he  proved  as  good  as  his  word:  "'My  Haunts  and 
their  Frequenters,'  by  Edmund  H.  Yates,"  dedicated  to 
his  "earliest  and  kindest  literary  friend,  Albert  Smith," 
appeared  in  July,  1854,  well  printed  on  good  paper,  and, 
for  an  illustration  on  the  cover,  a  somewhat  fancy  portrait 
of  the  author,  seated  at  his  oak  davenport,  drawn  by  my 


168  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

old  friend,  H.  G.  Hine,  Avho  has  since  won  a  very  high 
position  among  -water-color  artists. 

The  little  book  was  kindly  received  by  the  press  ;  the 
grave  AthencBion  said,  "There  is  more  bone  in  this  con- 
tribution to  shilling  light  literature  than  we  usually  rec- 
ognize. Some  of  the  sketches  are  amusing,  and  neatly 
finished  off ;"  the  Atlas,  then  extant,  and  edited  by  Rob- 
ert Bell,  found  it  "  a  lively  sketch  of  the  life  of  a  gay 
man  in  town,  written  in  a  more  gentlemanly  tone  than 
is  usual  in  such  works  ;"  and  the  Era,  the  Weekly  JDis- 
2Kitch,  and,  of  course,  the  Court  Journal,  had  all  some- 
thing pleasant  to  say.  I  could  never  learn  anything  about 
the  sale  from  Mr.  Bogue,  save  that  he  "  didn't  complain," 
so  I  imagine  he  recouped  himself  for  the  outlay. 

That  same  year,  '54,  was  memorable  to  me  in  many 
ways.  In  it  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Charles  Dickens. 
There  was  no  one  in  the  world  for  whom  I  had  so  much 
admiration,  or  whoni  I  so  longed  to  know.  I  had  no 
s))ecial  object  in  calling  upon  him,  certainly  not  the  idea 
of  getting  him  to  take  my  work,  for  I  perfectly  allowed 
that  that  was  not  up  to  the  Household  Words  standard ; 
but  I  thought  he  would  receive  me  kindly,  for  my  name's 
sake,  and  he  did.  I  called  at  Tavistock  House,  gave  in 
my  card,  and  was  ushered  into  the  drawing-room — a  huge 
room  at  the  back  of  the  house.  After  a  few  minutes  a 
lady  entered.  Miss  Hogarth,  Dickens's  sister-in-law,  and, 
in  his  own  words,  "the  best  and  truest  friend  man  ever 
had."  She  greeted  me  most  i)leasantly,  Avith  a  winning 
smile,  and  told  me  that  Mr.  Dickens  was  busily  engaged 
on  work  which  he  could  not  leave  at  that  moment ;  but 
that  if  I  was,  as  he  su]iposed,  the  son  of  Mr.  Frederick 
Yates,  formerly  of  the  Adelithi,  he  would  be  delighted 
to  see  mc  on  the  lU'xt  Sunday,  at  two  o'clock.  Of  course 
I  gratefully  accei»tcd  this  a]ipointment,  and  went  away. 
Bi'  sure  I  was  punctual  on  Sunday,  when  I  was  ushered 
Ntraiglit  into  the  presence  of  the  great  man,  and  found 
him  sitting  at  his  desk  in  the  window  of  the  front  room 
on  the  first  floor,  looking  on  to  the  little  enclosure  in  which 
tli(!  house  stood.  He  rose  to  greet  me,  took  my  liand  in 
his  hearty  grip,  and  jdaced  me  in  a  chair  ojtposite  to  his. 


EAKLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  169 

There  were  no  photographs  of  celebrities  to  be  pur- 
chased in  those  days,  and  I  had  formed  my  idea  of  Dick- 
ens's personal  appearance  and  the  portrait  of  him,  by 
Maclise,  prefixed  to  "  Nickleby  :"  the  soft  and  delicate 
face,  with  the  long  hair,  the  immense  stock,  and  the  high- 
collared  waistcoat.  He  was  nothing  like  that.  Indeed, 
my  mother,  who  saw  him  shortly  after  this,  and  who  had 
not  met  him  for  fifteen  years,  declared  she  should  not 
have  recognized  him,  for,  save  his  eyes,  there  was  no 
trace  of  the  original  Dickens  about  him.  His  hair,  though 
worn  still  somewhat  long,  was  beginning  to  be  sparse;  his 
cheeks  were  shaved ;  lie  had  a  mustache  and  a  "  door- 
knocker" beard  encircling  his  mouth  and  chin.  His  eyes 
were  wonderfully  bright  and  piercing,  with  a  keen,  eager 
outlook  ;  his  bearhig  hearty,  and  somewhat  aggressive. 
He  wore  on  that  occasion  a  loose  jacket  and  wide  trou- 
sers, and  sat  back  in  his  chair,  with  one  leg  under  him  and 
his  hand  in  his  pocket,  very  much  as  in  Frith's  portrait. 
"  Good  God,  how  like  your  father  !"  were  his  first  words. 
Then  he  proceeded  to  talk  of  his  old  recollections  of  the 
Adelphi,  his  great  admiration  for  ray  mother ;  told  me 
the  news  of  my  father's  death  was  part  of  the  budget 
brought  out  by  the  Liverpool  pilot  on  his  return  from 
Amei'ica ;  asked  me  of  my  mother,  of  myself,  my  position 
and  prospects,  all  in  the  kindest  way.  He  was  off  that 
week  with  his  family  to  spend  the  summer  at  Boulogne, 
and  hoped  they  should  see  me  on  their  return.  I  asked 
him  about  Broadstairs,  where  I  had  an  idea  of  going  for 
a  little  holiday,  and  he  praised  the  place  warmly.  I  do 
not  think  I  mentioned  my  literary  aspirations  to  him, 
save,  perhaps,  in  a  very  casual  way  ;  but  I  must  very 
soon  after  have  sent  him  "  My  Haunts,"  for  the  following, 
his  first  letter  to  me,  alludes  to  its  receipt : 

"Boulogne,  Thirtieth  July,  1854. 
"  Mt  dear  Sir, — I  have  brought  your  book  away,  with  otlier  pleasant 
gifts  of  that  nature,  to  read  under  a  haystack  here.  If  I  delay  thanking 
you  for  it  any  longer,  I  am  afraid  you  may  think  either  that  I  have  not 
got  it  or  that  I  don't  care  for  it.  As  either  mistake  would  be  really  pain- 
ful to  me,  I  send  this  small  parcel  of  thanks  to  London  in  a  Household 
Words  packet,  and  beg  to  express  a  hope  that  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 

8 


170  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

seeing  you  under  my  London  haystack  (metaphorical  for  ceiling)  when  I 
return  home  for  the  winter ;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  I  hope  you  may  like 
Broadstairs  half  as  well  as  I  do. 

"  Very  faithfully  yours,  Charles  Dickens." 

The  first  time  we  met  after  this  was,  however,  under 
mij  "  haystack,  metaphorical  for  ceiling."  On  the  14th 
October,  this  year  '54,  my  eldest  son,  Frederick  Henry 
Albert,  was  born  ;  and  at  a  little  dinner  given  in  honor 
of  the  christening,  towards  the  end  of  the  following 
month,  Dickens  honored  us  with  his  company,  and  was 
most  delightful.  My  mother  and  the  two  godfathers — 
Albert  Smith  and  Mr.  Wilkinson,  my  father-in-law— were 
also  present. 

In  the  early  autumn  I  was  asked  by  Mr.  Bogue  to  call 
in  Fleet  Street  "  on  a  matter  of  business,"  which  proved 
to  be  a  desire  to  secure  my  services  and  co-operation  in 
the  establishment  of  a  projected  new  magazine,  to  be  pub- 
lished by  Bogue,  to  be  called  Cruikshank's  3Iagazine,  to 
be  illustrated  by  the  celebrated  artist,  and  to  be  edited 
by  Mr.  Smedley,  "whom,  of  course,  I  knew."  I  had 
never  heard  of  Mr.  Smedley,  and  it  was  not  until  Bogue 
mentioned  him  as  the  author  of  "Frank  Fairlegh  "  that 
I  knew  of  whom  he  spoke.  With  that,  and  other  novels 
from  the  same  pen,  full  of  life  and  "  go,"  hunting  and 
racing  scenes,  and  strange  adventures,  I  had  a  casual  ac- 
quaintance ;  but  I  liad  never  seen  the  author,  never  met 
any  one  who  knew  him.  So  I  took  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion from  Mr.  Bogue,  and  went  off  at  once  to  Jermyn 
Street,  where  Mr.  Smedley  lived,  in  the  aspiring  frame 
of  mind  befitting  one  about  to  enlist  as  a  light  free-lance 
under  a  new  chief. 

As  I  rode  uj)  in  the  cab,  I  was  picturing  to  myself  the 
man  with  whom  I  was  about  to  become  acquainted  ;  and 
as  I  now  write,  those  thoughts  recur  to  me  exactly  as 
they  i)assed  through  my  mind.  I  have  laughed  over  them 
so  often  with  liini  wlio  was  their  subject  that  there  is 
no  wonder  at  their  remaining  fi.xed  on  my  memory.  I 
figured  to  myself  a  tall,  strongly  -  built  man,  of  about 
forty  years  of  age,  bald,  with  a  fringe  of  hair,  large 
breezy  whiskers,  strong  bony  hands,  and  general  muscu- 


EARLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  iVl 

lar  development,  rather  "horsey"  in  his  dress  and  talk 
and  manner.  I  expected  that  his  tone  would  be  rather 
h'usque,  and  that  I  might  probably  be  unable  to  attain 
his  required  standard  of  "  knowingncss "  in  matters  re- 
lating to  the  field  and  the  road. 

I  sent  in  my  letter,  and  I  was  ushered  into  the  presence 
of  a  gentleman  whom,  even  in  the  dim  light  of  a  shaded 
lamp  standing  on  the  table  by  his  elbow,  I  could  tell  to 
be  suffering  under  some  malformation,  as  he  sat  in  his 
wheel-chair  —  a  little  man,  with  a  peculiar,  clever  face; 
piercing  eyes,  never  moving  from  the  person  he  was  ad- 
dressing ;  a  manner  beginning  in  earnestness  and  then 
straying  into  banter  ;  a  voice  beginning  in  harshness  and 
modulating  into  j^leasantest  cadence  ;  a  bearing  which, 
although,  in  its  endeavor  to  be  thoroughly  independent, 
it  almost  verged  on  the  repulsive,  was,  notwithstanding, 
indefinably  attractive.  I  was  so  astonished  at  finding 
such  a  difference  in  what  I  had  expected,  that,  as  I  have 
since  thought,  my  answers  to  his  short  and  pertinent 
questions  must  have  been  vague  and  unsatisfactory.  At 
all  events,  I  recollect  that  my  new  acquaintance's  tone 
became  slightly  sarcastic,  which  recalled  me  to  myself  ; 
that  I  endeavored  to  answer  him  as  best  I  could  ;  that  his 
manner  then  changed  ;  and  that  on  that,  the  first  day 
of  our  acquaintance,  we  formed  an  intimate  friendship 
which  continued  until  the  latest  hour  of  his  life. 

I  think  that  this  kindness  of  heart,  veiled  occasionally 
under  an  affectation  of  calculating  worldliness  of  mind, 
and  a  little  cynicism  very  badly  sustained,  was  the  ruling 
spirit  of  his  life.  He  was  never  happy  save  when  doing 
a  kindness  to  some  one  ;  never  pleased  save  when  he  had 
some  little  pet  scheme  of  beneficence,  which  he  Avould 
bring  out  as  though  he  were  ashamed  of  it ;  while  his 
quivering  lips  and  brimming  eyes  belied  the  assumed 
roughness  of  his  voice  and  manner.  He  was  soft-hearted 
to  a  degree  ;  and  his  physical  malady  had  kept  his  inter- 
course with  the  world  so  restricted,  that  while  his  mind 
was  full,  strong,  and  manly,  his  experiences  of  certain 
sides  of  life  were  as  pure  and  unsullied  as  those  of  a 
young  girl.     All  the  impulses  of  his  soul  were  deep-set. 


I  "72  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

earnest,  fervent,  and  generous.  He  had  heard  of  the  low- 
er views  of  humanity  held  by  some  great  men,  but  he  had 
never  had  reason  to  allow  their  existence  ;  so  he  frankly 
and  unhesitatingly  denied  it.  He  was  himself  a  man  "  in 
whom  was  no  guile,*'  and  it  was  very  difficult  indeed  for 
him  to  allow  its  presence  in  any  one  else. 

With  all  the  masculinity  of  his  writings  (and  there  are 
few  wa-iters  who,  in  certain  phases  of  description,  notably 
of  the  hunting-field  and  the  race-course,  have  surpassed 
him),  his  mind  was,  to  a  certain  degree,  feminine.  He 
had  the  strong  likings  and  dislikings,  petulances,  love  of 
small  jokes,  desire  of  praise,  and  irritation  at  small  annoy- 
ances, which  are  frequently  found  in  women  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  had  a  magnanimity,  an  amount  of  patient 
long-suffering,  and  a  courage  both  moral  and  physical, 
such  as  are  given  to  few  men.  His  bodily  infirmities,  be- 
fore alluded  to,  prevented  him  from  indulging  in  any  of 
the  amusements  which  he  most  fancied,  shut  him  out  from 
a  vast  amount  of  society,  kept  him  a  prisoner  to  his  chair  ; 
and  yet  I  never  heard  one  syllable  of  repining  escape  his 
lips,  though  on  more  than  one  occasion  I  have  heard  him 
turn  off  some  well-meant  though  badly-timed  commiser- 
ation with  a  light-hearted  jest. 

A  mutual  liking  s})ringing  up  between  us,  I  saw  much 
of  my  new  acquaintance  ;  of  his  father,  the  High  Bailiff 
of  Westminster — a  fine,  manly,  handsome,  elderly  gentle- 
man, always  very  kind  to  me ;  and  of  his  mother,  a  very 
clever  woman  of  society,  who  "  gave  up  to  parties  what 
was  meant  for" — better  things,  and  from  whom  he  inher- 
ited much  of  his  talent.  The  whole  Smodley  family,  and 
especially  Frank,  soon  became  very  fond  of  my  wife,  and 
we  were  constantly  invited  to  the  house.  Owing  to  Frank 
Smcdh-y's  ii)al)ility  for  locomotion,  I  was  enabled  to  make 
myself  useful  to  him  in  seeing  the  publisher,  contributors, 
anil  the  great  George  ('ruikshank  himself,  and  thus  our 
intimacy  rapidly  increased.  An  interview  between  Cruik- 
shank  and  Sniedley  was  a  very  comic  sight  for  a  looker- 
on  :  the  old  artist  bouncing  about  the  room,  illustrating 
])V  violent  action  and  gesture  every  tiling  he  said,  wholly 
unrestrained  by  any  fear  of  becoming  grotesque ;  and  the 


EARLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  173 

little  editor,  screwed  up  iu  Lis  wlieel-cliair,  peering  at  his 
visitor  out  of  the  corners  of  his  small  eyes,  and  strongly 
appreciating  every  item  of  the  performance. 

One  story  of  Frank's  about  his  coadjutor  always  struck 
me  as  being  very  funny.  One  warm  morning  Cruikshank 
arrived  in  Jermjm  Street,  and  pulled  a  chair  in  front  of 
Smedley's  desk,  being  evidently  full  of  business.  The  old 
gentleman's  chevelure  in  his  later  days  was  always  of  an 
extraordinary  kind,  long  wisps  of  gray  hair  being  brought 
from  the  back  of  his  head  over  the  scalp,  and  secured 
there  with  a  narrow  elastic  baud.  But,  in  addition  to 
this,  on  this  occasion  Smedley  perceived  that  Cruikshank 
had  a  small  perforated  bone  wheel  fixed  in  the  centre  of 
his  forehead.  So  fascinated  was  Frank  by  this  extraordi- 
nary sight  that  he  could  not  withdraw  his  eyes  from  it ; 
and  at  last  Cruikshank,  finding  his  host's  gaze  stonily 
fixed  on  one  spot  throughout  the  interview,  testily  de- 
manded what  he  was  staring  at.  "Nothing,"  Frank  re- 
plied, endeavoring  to  excuse  himself  ;  but  immediately 
after,  the  little  wheel  became  detached,  and  fell  on  the 
floor.  "You've  dropped  something,"  said  Cruikshank, 
poking  after  it  with  his  stick.  "  I  ?  No — you,"  said  his 
host.  "Nonsense!"  cried  the  irascible  George,  who  had 
now  picked  it  up  ;  "  nonsense  !  What  do  you  think  I 
could  do  with  a  thing  like  this  ?"  "  All  I  know  is,  that 
for  the  last  half -hour  it  has  been  sticking  in  the  middle  of 
your  forehead,"  returned  Frank.  "  Impossible,  sir  !  quite 
impossible  !"  roared  Cruikshank.  Eventually  it  appeared 
that  the  little  wheel  was  a  ventilator,  which  had  slipped 
from  its  original  position  in  the  crown  of  Cruikshank's 
hat,  and  stuck,  with  the  heat,  on  his  forehead. 

Not  much  was  done  with  Cruikshank^s  Ifciffcizitie,  of 
which  only  two  or  three  numbers  appeared.  As  a  deline- 
ator of  character,  an  illustrator  of  stories,  the  veteran  ar- 
tist had  lost  whatever  hold  he  may  once  have  had  on  the 
public,  while  his  fertile  fancy,  which  lasted  for  many  suc- 
ceeding years,  had  no  scope  in  such  a  periodical.  How- 
ever, the  magazine  had  well  served  my  })urpose — through 
it  I  had  established  a  friendship  with  Frank  Smedley, 
which  was  not  merely  pleasant,  but  practical.     Noting 


174  FIFTY  TEAJIS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

my  facility  for  Ingoldsbian  verse,  and  having  himself  es- 
sayed successfully  in  that  line,  my  new  friend  proposed 
we  should  jointly  publish  a  shilling  book,  a  collection  of 
metrical  stories,  I  was  delighted  at  the  idea,  and  at  once 
set  about  collecting  all  my  floating  verse  and  writing 
more  ;  Smcdley  did  the  same.  Publishers — they  gave  us, 
I  think,  £20 — were  found  in  the  then  newly-established 
firm  of  Messrs.  George  Routledge  &  Co.,  in  Farringdon 
Street — one  of  the  partners,  "William  Warne,  long  since 
dead,  was  especially  kind  to  me ;  and  in  November, 
'"Mirth  and  Metre,'  by  two  Merry  Men  :  Frank  E.  Smed- 
ley  and  Edmund  H.  Yates,"  was  presented  to  the  public. 
This  little  book,  funnily  illustrated  by  William  McCon- 
nell,  had  a  very  fair  success.  Some  parodies  of  mine  on 
Tennyson,  Longfellow,  Poe,  and  others,  were  mightily 
popular,  and  are  still,  I  see,  from  time  to  time,  reproduced 
in  "  Collections."  The  press  notices  were  very  good,  and 
altogether  I  was  more  than  well  satisfied. 

Just  about  this  time  I  obtained  more  journalistic  em- 
ployment through  my  friend,  Mr.  T.  Knox  Holmes,  who 
had  some  share  in  the  WeeJdy  Chronicle,  a  journal  of  mod- 
est circulation,  the  principal  distinction  of  which  was  that 
its  title  was  printed  in  red  ink.  Its  editor  and  proprietor, 
Mr,  John  Sheehan,  known  as  the  "  Irish  whiskey-drinker," 
was  in  Paris  at  the  time,  and  his  locum  tenens  was  Mr.  J. 
R.  Robinson,  now  the  well-knowTi  manager  of  the  Daily 
News,  who  received  me  with  great  kindness,  and  with 
whom  I  contracted  an  intimate  friendship,  which  still 
exists.  The  remuneration  was  small,  but  the  work  was 
pleasant.  I  Bupj)lied  dramatic  criticism,  and  a  column  of 
"  literary  and  artistic  gossip,"  my  first  attempt  at  anything 
of  the  kind. 

As  my  family  and  my  work  were  both  increasing,  I 
found  it  nect'ssary  to  give  uj)  my  little  house,  and  to  seek 
f<jr  larger  and  more  accessihk;  (piarters — nearer,  that  is 
to  say,  to  the  theatres  and  Fleet  Street,  the  journalistic 
Mecca.  I  found  them  in  Doughty  Street,  close  by  the 
Foundling  Hospital,  a  locality  not  unknown  to  literary 
fame.  Sydney  Smith  had  lived  there  ;  Shirley  Brooks 
was  born  there;  at  No.  48  Charles  Dickens  resided  for 


EARLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  175 

some  time,  writing  there  a  great  portion  of  "  Pickwick." 
I  lived  at  43,  and  opposite  to  me  was  Mr.  Tegg,  the  pub- 
lisher, a  name  familiar  since  my  childhood  as  that  of  the 
firm  by  which  the  delightful  "  Peter  Parley  "  series  of 
juvenile  books  was  issued.  It  was  a  broad,  airy,  whole- 
some street — none  of  your  common  thoroughfares,  to  be 
rattled  through  by  vulgar  cabs  and  earth-shaking  Pick- 
ford  vans  ;  but  a  self-included  property,  with  a  gate  at 
each  end,  and  a  lodge  with  a  porter  in  a  gold-laced  hat 
and  the  Doughty  arms  on  the  buttons  of  his  mulberry- 
colored  coat,  to  prevent  any  one,  except  with  a  mission  to 
one  of  the  houses,  from  intruding  on  the  exclusive  terri- 
tory. 

The  rent  was  seventy  pounds  a  year,  "on  a  repairing 
lease  "  (which  means  an  annual  outlay  of  from  five-and- 
twenty  to  thirty  pounds  to  keep  the  bricks  and  mortar 
and  timbers  together),  and  the  accommodation  consisted 
of  a  narrow  dining-room  painted  salmon-color,  and  a  little 
back  room  looking  out  upon  a  square  black  enclosure  in 
which  grew  fearful  fungi ;  two  big  drawing-rooms,  the 
carpeting  of  which  nearly  swallowed  a  quarter's  income  ; 
two  good  bedrooms,  and  three  attics.  I  never  went  into 
the  basement  save  when  I  visited  the  cellar,  which  was  a 
mouldy  vault  under  the  street  pavement,  only  accessible 
through  the  area,  and  consequently  rendering  any  one 
going  to  it  liable  to  the  insults  of  rude  boys,  who  would 
grin  through  the  area  railings  and  make  ribald  remarks ; 
but  I  believe  the  kitchen  was  pronounced  by  the  servants 
to  be  "  stuffy,"  and  the  whole  place  "  ill-conwenient,"  there 
being  no  larder,  pantry,  nor  the  usual  domestic  arrange- 
ments. I  know,  too,  that  we  were  supposed  to  breed  and 
preserve  a  very  magnificent  specimen  of  the  black  beetle: 
insects  which  migrated  to  different  parts  of  the  house  in 
droves,  and  which,  to  the  number  of  five-and-twenty  being 
met  slowly  ascending  the  drawing-room  stairs,  caused  me 
to  invest  money  in  a  hedgehog — an  animal  that  took  up 
his  abode  in  the  coal-cellar  on  the  top  of  the  coals,  and, 
retiring  thither  early  one  morning  after  a  surfeit  of  bee- 
tles, was  supposed  to  have  been  inadvertently  "laid"  in 
the  fire  by  the  cook  in  mistake  for  a  lump  of  Wallsend. 


176  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

I  don't  think  there  were  many  advantages  in  the  Doughty 
Street  house  (though  I  was  very  happy  there,  and  had  an 
immense  amount  of  fun  and  pleasure),  beyond  the  prox- 
imity to  my  work,  and  the  consequent  saving  in  cab-hire 
and  fatigue.  But  I  do  recollect  the  drawbacks  ;  and  al- 
though many  years  have  elapsed  since  I  experienced  them, 
they  are  constantly  rising  in  my  mind.  I  remember  our 
being  unable  ever  to  open  any  window  without  an  imme- 
diate inroad  of  "blacks :"  triturated  soot  of  the  most  pen- 
etrating kind,  which  at  once  made  piebald  all  the  antima- 
cassars, toilet-covers,  counterpanes,  towels,  and  other  lin- 
en. I  remember  our  being  unable  to  get  any  sleep  after 
5  A.M.,  when,  at  the  builder's  which  abutted  on  our  back 
enclosure,  a  tremendous  bell  clanged,  summoning  the  work- 
men to  labor,  and  from  which  time  there  was  such  a  noise 
of  sawing  and  hammering,  and  planing  and  filing,  and 
tool  -  grinding  and  bellows  -  blowing,  interspersed  with 
strange  bellowings  in  the  Celtic  tongue  from  one  Ii'ish 
laborer  to  another,  and  mingled  with  objurgations  in  pure 
Saxon  from  irate  foremen,  that  one  might  as  well  have 
attempted  a  quiet  nap  in  the  neighborhood  of  Babel  when 
the  tower  was  in  course  of  erection. 

I  remember  the  hot  summer  Sunday  afternoons,  when 
the  pavement  would  be  red-hot,  and  the  dust,  and  bits  of 
straw,  and  scraps  of  jjaper  Avould  blow  fitfully  about  with 
every  little  puff  of  air,  and  the  always  dull  houses  would 
look  infinitely  duller  with  their  blinds  down,  and  no  sound 
would  fall  upon  the  ear  save  the  distant  hum  of  the  cabs 
in  Ilolborn,  or  the  footfall  of  some  young  person  in  ser- 
vice going  to  afternoon  church — or  to  its  substitute  —  in 
all  the  glory  of  open-worked  stockings,  low  shoes,  and  a 
l»rayer-b()ok  swaddled  in  a  white  cotton  pocket-handker- 
chief. I  have  sat  at  my  window  on  scores  of  such  Sun- 
days, eying  the  nose  of  Lazarus  over  the  dwarf  Venetian 
blind  opposite,  or  the  gorgeous  waistcoat  of  Eliason,  a 
little  higher  up  (for  the  Tribes  are  great  in  the  neighbor- 
hood). I  have  stared  upward  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
scrap  of  blue  unclouded  sky  visible  above  the  houses;  and 
tlien  I  liave  th(juglit  of  Richmond  Hill  ;  of  snowy  table- 
cloths, and  cool  Moselle-cup,  and  llounder-zootje,  in  a  room 


EAKLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  1V7 

overlooking  the  river  at  the  Orkney  Arras,  at  Taplow;  of 
that  sea-breeze  which  passes  the  little  hotel  at  Freshwater 
Bay,  in  wdld  hurry  to  make  play  over  the  neighboring 
downs  ;  of  shaded  walks,  and  cool  retreats,  and  lime  ave- 
nues, and  overhung  bathing-places,  and  all  other  things 
delicious  at  that  season  ;  until  I  have  nearly  gone  mad 
with  hatred  of  the  stifling  streets,  and  fancied  myself 
pretty  well  able  to  comprehend  the  feelings  of  the  polar- 
bears  in  their  dull  retrogressive  promenade  in  the  Zoo- 
logical Gardens. 

That  none  of  our  friends  had  ever  heard  of  Doughty 
Street;  that  no  cabman  could  be  instructed  as  to  its  ex- 
act whereabouts,  naming  it  generally  as  "somewhere  near 
the  Fondlin';"  that  migration  to  a  friend's  house  in  a 
habitable  region  to  dinner  occasioned  an  enormous  ex- 
pense in  cab-fare  ;  that  all  the  tradesmen  with  whom  we 
had  previously  dealt  declined  our  custom,  "as  they  nev- 
er sent  that  way ;"  that  we  found  Tottenham  Court  Road 
a  line  of  demarcation,  behind  which  we  left  light  and 
sunshine — on  our  side  of  which  we  tumbled  into  dulness 
and  gloom ;  that  we  were  in  the  midst  of  a  hansom-cab 
colony,  clattering  home  at  all  hours  of  the  night;  and  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  all  the  organ -men,  who 
gave  us  their  final  grind  just  before  midnight — all  these 
were  minor  but  irritating  annoyances.  However,  I  lived 
there  for  nearly  six  busy,  and  for  the  most  part  happy 
and  prosperous,  years,  during  which  "  red-hot  youth  cooled 
down  to  iron  man,"  and  which  were  to  me  full  of  more  or 
less  interesting  incident. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1855,  Mr.  Angus  Bethune  Reach, 
one  of  the  best  and  brightest  of  the  younger  writers  of 
the  day — his  romance,  "  Clement  Lorimer,"  and  his  "  Clar- 
et and  Olives,"  travels  through  the  wine -producing  dis- 
tricts of  France,  are  still  capital  reading — became,  through 
an  attack  of  softening  of  the  brain,  wholly  incapable  of 
further  self-help.  For  months  previous,  and  as  long  as 
there  was  a  chance  of  his  recovery,  his  regular  work  had 
been  duly  performed  by  his  intimate  friend,  Shirley 
Brooks,  and  the  proceeds  as  duly  handed  to  the  sick 
man's   wife.     Mr.  Reach's   case   was   now,  however,  pro- 


1V8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

nounced  hopeless,  and  his  friends  cast  about  for  some 
means  of  procuring  a  lump  sum  of  money  to  be  appro- 
priated to  his  benefit. 

The  notion  of  performing  an  amateur  pantomime  orig- 
inated with  Albert  Smith,  who  knew  that  in  "  Joe  "  Rob- 
ins there  were  all  the  requisites  of  an  extraordinary- 
Clown  ;  he  found  a  Harlequin  in  Mr.  John  Bidwell  of 
the  Foreign  Oflfice,  a  singularly  graceful  and  agile  dan- 
cer ;  Arthur  Smith  was  Pantaloon ;  while  for  me  the  char- 
acter of  the  "  Lover,"  the  person  who  is  Harlequin's  un- 
successful rival  in  Columbine's  affections  —  common  in 
Grimaldi's  day,  but  since  abandoned — was  revived.  We 
placed  ourselves  under  the  tuition  of  the  celebrated  Mr. 
W.  H.  Payne,  the  king  of  pantomine,  who,  with  his  two 
excellent  sons,  "Harry"  and  "Fred,"  devoted  himself  to 
us.  We  worked  for  six  weeks,  in  all  our  available  leisure, 
at  rehearsals,  and  we  performed  on  Saturday,  March  31, 
1855,  at  the  Olympic  Theatre.  A  true  appreciation  of 
our  extraordinary  success  can  best  be  obtained  by  a  pe- 
rusal of  the  admirable  critique  in  the  Times  of  the  follow- 
ing Monday,  written  by  John  Oxenford  in  his  most  de- 
lightful vein: 

"OLYMPIC  THEATRE. 
"amatkur   performance. 

"  Theatrical  amateurs  usually  soar  high.  For  tragedy  they  have  an  in- 
stinctive preference,  and  if  they  descend  to  comedy,  it  must  be  of  the  most 
special  kind,  so  that  the  temporary  fall  from  that  exalted  position  which 
all  amateurs  are  supposed  (socially,  not  artistically)  to  hold  may  be  as 
slight  as  possible. 

"But  who  ever  heard  of  an  amateur  pantomime — not,  be  it  understood, 
one  of  those  pantomimes  of  action  which  set  forth  a  fable  in  dumb-show 
instead  of  words — l)Ut  a  real  ordinary  pantomime,  with  an  amateur  Harle- 
(|uin,  CMown,  and  Pantaloon? 

"When  first  the  words  'Amateur  Pantomime'  were  put  about  they 
seemed  irreconcilable  terms,  like  'round  square,'  or  'wooden  loadstone;' 
they  seemed  to  denote  a  moral  and  physical  inipossiljility.  The  supposed 
moral  impossibility  resulted  from  that  dignity  at  which  we  have  hinted  aa 
an  inherent  quality  in  amateurs.  '  No  young  man  of  noble  l)irth  or  liberal 
sentiments,'  says  Plutarch,  '  from  seeing  the  .lupiter  at  Pisa,  would  desire 
to  be  Phidias;  or,  from  the  sight  of  the  Juno  at  Argos,  to  be  Polycletufl ; 
or  Anacreon  or  Philemon  or  Archilochus,  though  delighted  with  their 
poems.'  Plutarch's  notions  of  high  art  were  high  indeed,  for  they  ex- 
cluded all  sculpture  and  poetry,  however  ideal ;  and  amateurs,  though  they 


EARLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  179 

cannot  go  this  lengtli  (otiicrwise  they  would  even  cease  to  be  amateurs), 
have  still  certain  Plutarchian  elements  in  their  composition.  They  would 
modify  the  sweeping  declaration  into  a  special  contempt  for  'low  art,'  and 
so  far  dilute  the  doctrine  as  simply  to  maintain  that  he  who  applauds  the 
Boxing  Night  anthem  entitled  '  Hot  Codlins '  should  not  therefore  desire  to 
sing  it,  and  that  a  successful  leap  of  Harlequin  through  a  window,  though 
it  may  excite  wonder  in  the  dress-circle,  should  not  therefore  rouse  emu- 
lation. 

"  More  potent  still  seemed  the  objection  of  physical  impossibility.  Pro- 
fessional pantomimists  are,  in  a  manner,  born  to  the  business ;  and  setting 
all  questions  of  dignity  aside,  how  could  a  head  that  had  merely  served  as 
a  case  to  hold  brains  be  converted  into  a  pedestal  for  the  support  of  the 
inverted  body?  how  could  the  mysteries  of  a  somersault  be  solved  I)y  a 
frame  only  inured  to  the  most  stately  conventional  movements  ?  More- 
over, the  penalty  of  non-success  in  pantomime  is  somewhat  severe.  A 
failure  in  Hamlet  can,  at  the  most,  only  subject  an  unhappy  man  to  the 
pleasantries  of  his  acquaintance,  while  the  Clown,  who  plucks  no  histrionic 
laurels,  may  literally  break  his  neck  in  the  attempt. 

"However,  notwithstanding  all  reasonings  on  the  score  of  impossibility, 
the  report  that  an  amateur  pantomime  was  in  course  of  rehearsal  at  the 
Olympic  Theatre  was  not  to  be  shaken.  It  remained  as  a  good,  firm  re- 
port, with  a  strong  constitution,  till  at  last  it  took  the  shape  of  a  regular 
fact.  Somehow  or  other,  certainly  not  by  way  of  official  connnunication, 
all  the  world  suddenly  knew  that  the  '  Fielding  Club  '  (an  institution  famed 
for  the  brilliancy  of  its  wit  and  the  lateness  of  its  hours),  having  generous- 
ly made  up  its  mind  to  assist  a  most  deserving  literary  gentleman  who  is 
now  in  distressed  circumstances,  had  hit  upon  a  scheme  at  once  efficient 
and  eccentric.  The  gentlemen  of  the  'Fielding  Club,'  with  Mr.  Albert 
Smith  as  their  chief,  were  to  play  the  comic  pantomime  of  '  Harlequin 
Guy  Fawkes '  at  the  Olympic  Theatre. 

"  The  excitement  produced  by  the  possession  of  this  knowledge  was 
wonderful.  To  prevent  crowd  and  inconvenience,  a  comparatively  small 
quantity  of  tickets  was  issued ;  but  large  indeed  was  the  number  of  ap- 
plicants, and  all  sorts  of  legends  are  afloat  respecting  the  prices  given  for 
stalls  and  boxes. 

"On  Saturday — an  evening  long  to  be  remembered  in  dramatic  annals 
— the  promised  treat  was  given.  The  audience,  which  contained  a  more 
than  ordinary  proportion  of  literary  celebrities,  and  was  altogether  of  the 
most  refined  and  brilliant  kind,  seemed  actually  oppressed  by  the  weight 
of  expectation.  The  farce  of  '  My  Neighbor's  Wife '  commenced  the  busi- 
ness of  the  evening,  and  the  amateurs  were  laughed  at  as  each  made  his 
appearance.  But  the  laugh  soon  died  away,  and  the  look  of  anxious  ex- 
pectation returned.  What  is  an  amateur  farce  to  a  public  that  has  come 
to  see  an  amateur  pantomime  ? 

"The  great  solemnity  was  ushered  in  by  a  prologue,  the  work  of  Mr. 
Sunderland  Schneider — pshaw !  of  Mr.  Tom  Taylor.  Part  of  the  humor  of 
the  evening  consisted  in  the  odd  names  which  the  performers  gave  them- 
selves in  the  programme ;  but  we  need  not  keep  up  this  part  of  the  joke. 


180  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

Everybody  in  the  house  knew  every  prhicipal  actor  on  the  stage,  or,  at  any 
rate,  sat  next  to  somebody  who  did,  and  therefore  no  secrecy  was  gained 
by  such  names  as  '  Paul  Grave '  or  '  Mountain  White.'  A  Sphinx  is  no 
mystery  in  a  land  where  every  inhabitant  is  an  (Edipus,  and,  as  we  do  not 
choose  to  appear  more  ignorant  than  all  the  rest  of  our  fellow-citizens,  we 
break  through  the  very  thin  gauze  formed  by  the  appellations  in  the  bills, 
and  mention  real  names. 

"  The  prologue,  then,  which  was  spoken  by  Mr.  Cole,  in  the  character  of 
Shakspeare,  Mr.  Palgrave  Simpson  as  the  '  Present  Drama,'  and  Miss  OH- 
ver  as  the  Spirit  of  Pantomime,  and  aimed  at  a  sort  of  amicable  settlement 
of  the  differences  that  exist  between  the  '  slow '  and  '  fast '  factions,  was 
the  work  of  Mr.  Tom  Taylor.  Abounding  in  pleasant  allusions,  and  taste- 
fully ending  with  a  reference  to  the  charitable  object  of  the  performance, 
this  prologue  delighted  everybody  as  a  choicely-written  work,  alike  happy 
in  its  gayer  and  its  graver  tone. 

"  But  the  prologue  was  not  the  pantomime.  Other  amateurs  might 
have  spoken  Mr.  Taylor's  pointed  dialogue,  but  the  great  question  of  ama- 
teur harlequinade  was  yet  unsolved.  Again  did  the  grave  expectant  mood 
return. 

"  The  overture  was  played,  and  then — awful  moment — the  curtain  rose, 
and  showed  the  '  Vaults  below  the  Houses  of  Parliament.'  Barrels  of  gun- 
powder were  heaped  around,  and  on  one  of  these  sat  Mr.  Albert  Smith,  as 
Catesby,  attired  in  ancient  fashion  and  smoking  a  pipe.  He  introduced 
the  action  by  singing  one  of  those  rapid  songs  in  which  he  has  only  one 
rival  (viz.,  Mr.  C.  Mathews),  and  thus  lyrically  giving  a  precis  of  so  much 
English  history  as  was  connected  with  the  fable.  The  audience  thundered 
applause ;  but  even  now  there  was  no  wonder,  for  the  fact  that  Mr.  Albert 
Smith  is  a  capital  comic  singer  is  known  to  all  the  world.  It  was  when 
Mr.  Holmes  entered,  in  the  dress  of  Guy  Fawkes,  and  bowed  his  forehead 
down  to  his  toes,  with  all  that  freedom  from  bone  which  is  peculiar  to  pan- 
tomimic art,  that  the  new  sensation  was  produced.  Yes !  people  really 
began  to  believe  that  an  amateur  pantomime  was  possible. 

"A  great  weight  was  therefore  removed  from  the  mind,  which  became 
keenly  susceptible  of  enj(jymcnt.  A  parody  on  an  Italian  air,  admirably 
sung  by  Mr.  Holmes,  was  loudly  applauded,  and  the  statement  of  the  Lord 
Monteaglc  of  King  James's  time  that  he  was  'Lord  Monteagle,  formerly 
Spring  Rice,'  elicited  roars  of  mirth.  But  the  cream  of  the  introduction 
was  tlie  terrific  combat  between  Catesliy  and  Fawkes,  in  which  Messrs. 
Smith  and  Holmes  wont  throngli  all  those  conventional  jwsex  that  earned 
immortahty  in  those  good  old  days  wiien  the  Coburg  had  not  yet  taken 
the  name  of  the  Victoria. 

"  The  introduction  was  comprised  in  a  single  scene,  and  according  to  a 
common  modern  practice,  the  actors  of  the  harlofiuinade  were  not  the  same 
with  those  of  the  story.  When  the  mf)niont  of  '  transformation '  arrived, 
and  the  Spirit  of  the  Thames,  enacted  Ity  Miss  Martindalo,  told  Catesby  to 
change  into  Harlequin,  llie  old  nervousness  of  tlie  audience  returned  once 
more.  What  tliey  iiad  hitherto  seen  showed  grote8(|ue  talent,  it  was  true, 
but,  after  all,  it  was  only  tiic  'little  go'  of  the  affair;  the  difficulties  of 


EARLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  181 

Clownery  and  Pantaloonery  had  yet  to  be  surmounted,  and  a  break-down 
was  yet  upon  tlic  cards. 

"  Most  efficiently  were  these  fears  dispelled  by  the  first  entrance  of  the 
chief  characters.  Mr.  Bidwell  looked  as  much  like  a  real  Harlequin  as 
any  that  ever  sparkled  at  Christmas;  Mr.  Arthur  Smith  was  a  thorough 
Pantaloon  ;  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  was  an  unexceptionable  lover  ;  and  Mr.  J. 
Robins  was  an  ordinary — no,  he  was  not,  he  was  an  extraordinary — Clown  ; 
for,  with  his  stout  fip^ure,  his  fat  face,  and  the  expression  of  quiet  humor 
in  his  eyes  and  mouth,  he  gave  a  taste  of  that  quality  which  play-goers  of 
thirty  years'  standing  may  recollect  in  Grimaldi,  but  of  which  modern 
habitues  of  the  theatre  know  but  little.  The  Columbine  was,  of  course, 
professional,  and  a  more  excellent  Columbine  could  not  have  been  obtained 
than  Miss  Rosina  Wright. 

"  In  the  various  scenes  of  the  harlequinade  the  amateurs  were  success- 
fully put  to  every  test  of  pantomimic  art,  excepting  that  talent  for  posture- 
making  which  is  a  modern  innovation,  and  passed  victoriously  through 
them  all.  The  business-like  manner  in  which  they  executed  all  the  con- 
ventional movements,  supposed  to  be  the  exclusive  property  of  a  small 
body  of  professional  artists,  was  really  amazing.  The  audience  could 
scarcely  believe  that  Harlequin  was  in  earnest  when  he  prepared  to  leap 
through  a  wall ;  but  he  was  so  notwithstanding,  and  if  he  was  not  quite 
glib  the  first  time,  he  went  through  the  scene  like  a  shot  whenever  he  re- 
peated the  exploit.  It  could  scarcely  be  expected  that  amateurs  would 
interchange  those  violent  assaults  which  make  up  so  much  of  the  comic 
business  of  pantomime,  but  never  did  Clown  and  Pantaloon  belabor  each 
other  more  heartily,  or  tumble  down  with  more  formidable  truthfulness, 
than  Mr.  J.  Robins  and  Mr.  Arthur  Smith.  The  audience,  inspired  by  the 
triumph  of  the  performers,  at  last  forgot  that  they  were  amateurs  alto- 
gether, and  shouted  aloud  for  '  Hot  Codlins.'  The  new  test  was  gallantly 
accepted,  and  Mr.  J.  Robins  sang  the  famous  legend  of  the  '  little  old 
woman '  with  all  the  contortions  of  voice  and  countenance  that  would  have 
satisfied  the  most  rigid  judge  of  pantomimic  proprieties.  Nor  should  we, 
while  recording  the  excellence  of  the  principal  characters,  forget  the  ac- 
cessaries. A  series  of  burlesque  poses  plastiques,  executed  by  Messrs. 
Holmes,  Ibbetson,  and  Hallett,  in  the  dress  of  acrobats,  were  inimitably 
comic ;  and  scarcely  less  so  was  the  performance  of  Mr.  E.  Yates,  who,  as 
a  careful  tight-rope  dancer,  chalked  a  line  upon  the  ground,  and  upon  that, 
instead  of  a  real  cord,  went  through  all  the  business  of  actual  peril  and 
precaution.  Mr.  Albert  Smith,  too,  re-appeared  in  the  harlequinade,  dressed 
as  a  showman,  and  sang  the  late  Mr.  Mathews's  song  of  the  '  Country 
Fair,'  with  several  modifications  of  his  own.  Some  exceedingly  clever 
balancing  tricks  were  done  by  a  gentleman  who  seemed  to  be  unknown 
to  the  generality  of  the  audience;  but  Mr.  Albert  Smith,  who  was  on  the 
stage  during  the  feats,  called  out  that  he  was  an  amateur. 

"  The  fall  of  the  curtain  was  the  signal  for  shouts  of  applause  and  calls 
for  the  principal  actors,  and  as  the  audience  left  the  theatre,  one  declara- 
tion might  be  plainly  heard  from  many  lips,  '  This  is  the  best  pantomime 
I  ever  saw  in  my  life.' " 


182  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

The  results  of  this  performance  enabled  us  to  provide 
for  the  comfort  of  our  friend  in  his  last  days  (he  died 
within  twelve  months),  and  the  fame  of  it  reached  the 
ears  of  Royalty,  The  consequence  was  a  command  to 
repeat  the  pantomime  in  the  presence  of  the  Queen  and 
the  Prince  Consort — a  command  which  we  obeyed  short- 
ly afterwards  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  with  enormous 
success,  H.  R.  H,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  then  a  lad  of  four- 
teen, taking  especial  delight  in  the  performance.  The 
large  receipts  were  handed,  at  her  Majesty's  suggestion, 
to  the  Royal  Naval  Female  School — an  admirable  insti- 
tution, which,  in  gratitude  for  the  bounty  of  the  Fielding 
Club,  made  three  of  its  committee-men  life  governors,  the 
privileges  of  which  position  I  still  enjoy.  A  large  addi- 
tion to  the  funds  of  Wellington  College — the  proceeds  of 
the  performance  of  the  amateur  pantomime,  with  a  differ- 
ent "  opening,"  in  the  June  of  the  following  year  —  did 
not,  if  I  remember  rightly,  elicit  anything  but  a  bare  ex- 
pression of  thanks.  In  the  second  amateur  pantomime, 
Mr.  Bidwell's  place  as  Harlequin  was  filled  by  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Brandram,  now  so  well  known  as  an  exponent  of 
Shakspeare. 

On  the  9th  June,  1855,  was  published  the  first  number 
of  the  Illustrated  Times,  and  about  ten  days  after,  having 
heard  that  its  principal  proprietor  was  Mr.  Bogue,  I  called 
upon  him  and  asked  for  employment.  In  reply  to  his  ques- 
tion of  what  I  proposed  doing,  I  developed  a  little  scheme 
which  seemed  to  please  him,  and  which  he  bade  me  go 
at  once  and  talk  over  with  Mr.  Henry  Vizetcll)',  the  edi- 
tor. Mr.  Vizetelly,  a  thorouglily  sharp  and  practical  busi- 
ness man  in  journalism,  wholly  unhampered  by  conven- 
tionality or  ])recedent,  was  amused  and  perhaps  somewhat 
impressed  with  my  idea,  and  desired  me  to  write  him  a 
specimen  article,  which  was  published  in  the  number  for 
the  ;iO(h  June,  with  the  title,"  The  Lounger  at  the  Clubs." 
This  was  the  commencement  of  that  style  of  "personal" 
journalism  which  is  so  very  much  to  be  deprecated  and 
so  enormously  popular.  Into  the  vexed  question  of  how 
far  such  style  of  writing  is  permissible,  of  the  good  or 
harm  that  it  does,  I  am  certainly  not  going  to  enter  here. 


EARLY  JIARRIED  LIFE.  183 

I  only  know  that  for  six  or  seven  yeai-s  I  kept  up  a  con- 
tinuous comment  on  the  social,  literary,  and  dramatic 
events  of  the  day ;  and  it  was,  I  believe,  Mr.  Vizetelly's 
opinion  that  my  flippant  nonsense  did  as  much  for  the 
sale  of  the  paper  as  the  deeper  and  drier  wisdom  of  my 
colleagues.  If,  as  I  am  given  to  understand,  a  prominent 
attraction  of  the  World  is,  to  the  majority  of  its  readers, 
"  What  the  World  says,"  unquestionably  that  article  had 
its  origin  and  foundation  in  "  The  Lounger  at  the  Clubs ;" 
and  I  can  never  cease  to  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Henry  Vize- 
telly  for  the  unswerving  kindness  with  which  he  sup- 
ported me,  an  unknown  struggler,  in  those  early  days 
against  a  powerful  clique.  Many  of  the  rising  men  of 
the  day  —  George  Sala,  Robert  Brough,  James  Hannay, 
Frederick  Greenwood,  Sutherland  Edwards,  Augustus 
Mayhew,  Edward  Draper — were  on  the  staff  of  the  lit- 
tle paper,  which  did  well — so  well  that  the  proprietor  of 
its  big  predecessor  found  it  necessary  to  purchase  it,  and 
thenceforward  to  let  it  fly  with  partially-clipped  wings. 

Visiting  relations  had,  in  the  mean  time,  been  estab- 
lished between  us  and  the  Dickens  family,  and  we  were 
invited  to  Tavistock  House  on  the  18th  of  June,  to  wit- 
ness the  performance  of  Wilkie  Collins's  drama,  "The 
Lighthouse,"  in  which  the  author  and  Dickens,  Frank 
Stone,  Augustus  Egg,  Mark  Lemon,  and  the  ladies  of  the 
family  took  part.  My  mother,  who  went  with  us,  told 
me  that  Dickens,  in  intensity,  reminded  her  of  Lemaitre 
in  his  best  days.  I  was  much  struck  by  the  excellence 
of  Lemon's  acting,  which  had  about  it  no  trace  of  the 
amateur.  At  the  performance  my  mother  was  seated 
next  a  tall,  gray-haired  gentleman — a  most  pleasant  talker, 
she  said — who  proved  to  be  Mr.  Gilbert  a  Beckett,  the 
magistrate  and  wit ;  and  in  the  drawing-room  afterwards 
there  was  a  warm  greeting  between  her  and  Lady  Becher, 
formerly  Miss  O'Neil,  whom  she  had  not  seen  for  many 
years.  It  was  a  great  night  for  my  mother.  She  re- 
newed her  acquaintance  with  Stanfield  and  Roberts,  and 
was  addressed  in  very  complimentary  terms  by  the  great 
John  Forster.  Thackeray  and  his  daughters.  Leech,  Jer- 
rold.  Lord  Campbell,  and  Carlyle  were  there. 


184  Firry  years  of  london  life. 

On  the  27th  September  in  this  j- ear  twin-sons  were  born 
to  me.  Two  days  later,  being  at  the  Garrick  and  seeing 
Thackeray  there,  I  asked  him  for  an  autograph  for  a  book 
which  I  had  just  established.  He  sat  down  at  once,  and 
wi'ote  the  following : 

"Michaelmas  Day,  1855. 

"My  dear  Yates, — Am  I  to  condole  with  or  congratulate  you  on  the 
announcement  in  to-day's  paper?  May  every  year  increase  your  happi- 
ness, and  good-fortune  attend  your  increase !  I  know  I  am  writing  in  an 
affected  manner,  as  you  are  pleased  to  desire  my  autograph.  I  assure  the 
friend  for  whom  it  is  destined  that  I  am  quite  incapable  of  being  funny  on 
a  sudden,  easily  abashed,  of  a  modest,  retiring  disposition,  forty-four  years 
old,  and  Yours  truly,  my  dear  Yates, 

"  W.  M.  Thackeray. 

"  P.S. — The  T  of  the  signature  I  do  not  think  is  near  so  elegant  as  my 
ordinary  T's  are ;  in  fact,  my  attention  was  drawn  off  just  as  I  was  turning 
it. 

"  E.  Yates,  Esq.    (Private  and  Coufidential.)" 

Owing  to  these  domestic  arrangements,  my  holiday  this 
year  was  taken  late,  and  passed  at  Brighton,  where  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  Madame  Sala, 
mother  of  my  friend  G.  A.  S. — a  most  entertaining  and 
charming  woman.  The  twin -sons  throve;  and  when  it 
became  a  question  of  their  christening,  I  wrote  to  Dick- 
ens, who  was  wintering  in  Paris,  and  asked  if  he  would 
act  as  sponsor  to  one  of  them.     Here  is  his  reply: 

"Paris,  40  Avenue  des  Champ8-Elys(''es, 

"Wednesday,  Second  January,  1S56. 

"  My  dear  Yates, — Supposing  both  Corsican  Brothers  to  be  available,  I 
think  I  should  prefer  being  godfather  to  the  one  who  isn't  Kean.  With 
this  solitary  stipulation,  I  very  cordially  respond  to  your  proposal,  and  am 
happy  to  fake  my  friendly  and  sponsorial  scat  at  your  fireside. 

"  I  will  write  you  word  when  I  propose  making  another  flight  to  London, 
for  I  must  come  and  see  my  boy,  whether  we  fill  the  sparkling  wine-cup 
(when  I  was  in  America,  an  editor  wrote  me  a  note  of  invitation,  begging 
me  to  come  and  'crush  '  that  article  with  him)  or  not. 

"  When  you  represent  me  at  the  font,  and  are  renouncing,  think  that  on 
C'liristmns  Day  I  had  seven  sons  in  the  lianquet-hall  of  tliis  apartment — 
whidi  would  not  make  a  very  large  warm  bath — and  renounce  my  example. 

"  Mrs.  Dickena  and  Mi.-*s  llogartli  unite  with  me  in  kind  regards  to  your- 
self am!  Mrs.  Yates,  as  to  whom  1  now  consider  myself,  with  much  pleas- 
ure, a  sort  of  relation.  Very  faithfully  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 


EARLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  185 

The  boys  were  christened  shortly  afterwards,  Dickens  be- 
ing godfather  to  one,  and  Frank  Smedley  to  the  other. 

I  had  seen  Dickens  twice  before  his  departure  for  Paris 
— once  when  he  presided  over  a  dinner  given  to  Thack- 
eray, immediately  before  his  departure  for  America,  at 
which,  through  the  kindness  of  Peter  Cunningham,  who 
acted  as  honorary  secretary,  I  managed  to  be  present. 
It  was  a  most  interesting  occasion,  and  Dickens,  in  pro- 
posing the  toast  of  the  evening,  spoke  with  much  elo- 
quence. Thackeray,  too,  was  plainly  moved,  so  much  so 
that  his  reply  was  very  short ;  he  tried  to  pass  off  his 
emotion  with  some  joke  about  the  coming  voyage  and  the 
stCAvard,  but  it  was  too  much  for  him.  Dickens  left 
early,  and  Jerrold  was  voted  to  the  chair ;  whence  he 
made  a  speech,  proposing  the  health  of  Shirley  Brooks, 
as  the  "most  rising  journalist  of  the  day."  Brooks  at 
that  time  had  but  recently  joined  the  Punch  staff.  He 
had  literally  fought  his  way  on  to  it,  and  by  the  vigor  of 
his  onslaught  on  the  quasi-comic  journal,  and  specially  on 
Jerrold  himself,  had  compelled  his  recognition  and  absorp- 
tion. With  the  exception  of  Bunn's  memorable  "Word 
with  P«wcA,"  a  poem  written  by  Brooks,  and  published 
in  the  Man  in  the  Moon,  called  "  Our  Flight  with  Punch^'' 
was  the  most  telling  attack  ever  made  on  Messrs.  Brad- 
bury &  Evans's  property.     Thus  it  commenced  : 

"  Up,  up,  thou  dreary  Hunchback !    Ere  her  diamoud  stud,  the  sun, 
Stick  iu  Aurora's  habit-shirt,  there's  business  must  be  done. 
The  saucy  stars  are  winking  at  the  planets  on  their  beat : 
Up  !  thou  hast  grovelled  long  and  low — a  change  will  be  a  treat !" 

Punch  is  then  sharply  trounced  for  his  sneers  at  loyalty, 
religion,  and  the  upper  classes,  for  his  "  scandal  random- 
flung,"  for  his  ignorance  of  fair -play;  then  come  three 
of  the  best  stanzas : 

"  Back !  foolish  Hunchback,  to  the  course  that  whilome  made  thy  fame, 
Back  !  to  thy  lawful  quarry,  to  thy  Jove-appointed  game : 
Shoot  folly  as  it  flies ;  but  shoot  it  with  the  arrowy  joke, 
Not  with  a  brazen  blunderbuss,  all  bellow  and  black  smoke. 

"  Give  us,  once  more,  the  playful  wit  that  notched  the  legal  saw, 
That  sparkles  o'er  Hume's  '  History'  now,  as  once  o'er  Blackstone'e  law: 


186  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Give  us  the  truthful  social  sketch,  drawn  by  Titraarshian  skill, 
With  color  bright  as  Dickens's,  and  pencil  keener  still. 

"  Give  us  the  shower  of  quip  and  crank,  the  whinisey  and  the  wile, 
Murder  vain  Fashion's  shapeless  brood,  but  murder  with  a  smile. 
Poison  the  rats  of  Westminster  with  Hamlet's  '  poisoned  jest,' 
And  stab  as  once  Harmodius  stabbed,  with  steel  in  myrtle  dressed." 

Admirable  as  these  verses  are,  they  were  not,  oddly 
enough,  included  in  the  posthumous  collection  of  Shirley 
Brooks's  poems,  published  by  Messrs.  Bradbury  &  Evans. 
Brooks  lived  not  only  to  be  a  leading  contributor  to 
launch,  but  its  editor  ;  he  was  virtual  editor  during  Mark 
Lemon's  later  years,  and  at  Lemon's  death  obtained  the 
post.  Excellent  in  every  department  of  journalism,  to 
the  Punch  proprietary  he  was  simply  invaluable  :  he  was 
the  only  man  on  the  staff  with  much  knowledge  of  current 
politics ;  his  fertility  in  cartoon  suggestion  was  extraor- 
dinary ;  he  could  write  verse  and  prose  with  almost  equal 
facility ;  and  so  vast  was  his  newspaper  reading  that  he 
never  missed  a  noticeable  point,  not  merely  in  the  Lon- 
don, but  in  the  provincial  press. 

The  other  occasion  on  which  I  had  been  with  Dickens 
in  the  latter  days  of  '55  was  memorable  to  me  as  the  first 
of  very  many  subsequent  delightful  nights  passed  among 
odd  scenes  in  close  intimacy  with  him.  We  went  on 
what  would  nowadays  be  called  a  "  slumming "  expedi- 
tion, quite  original  in  those  days,  but  long  since  done  to 
death.  A  friend  of  Dickens's,  a  certain  M.  Delarue,  a 
banker  in  Genoa,  who  was  on  a  visit  to  Tavistock  House, 
had  a  great  desire  to  see  some  of  the  low  life  of  London ; 
and  Dickens  accordingly  arranged  with  the  police  for  a 
party  of  us,  of  which  I  was  one,  to  dine  early  together, 
and  then  "  go  tlie  rounds "  of  the  thieves'  (piarters  in 
Whitechapel,  the  sailors'  and  German  sugar-bakers'  tav- 
erns in  Ilatcliff  Highway,  the  dens  of  the  Mint,  etc.  It 
was  a  curious  experience,  but  the  interest  of  it  to  me  was 
greatly  increased  by  the  fact  that  I  was  in  the  company 
of  the  man  whose  genius  I  had  worshij)ped  so  long  and 
80  ardently  ;  and  wlien  he  called  nie  into  the  cab,  and  we 
returned  alone  together,  he  ciiatting  freely  and  charming- 


EARLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  187 

ly,  I  wondered  whether  Fate  could  have  in  store  for  me 
greater  distinction  or  delight. 

Meantime  I  had  had  opportunities  for  increasing  my 
literary  work.  The  proprietors  of  the  Illustrated  London 
Magazine,  a  somewhat  obscure  periodical,  having  asked 
Frank  Smedley  to  write  them  a  novel,  he  managed  to  have 
the  commission  transferred  to  me,  of  course  at  a  much 
lower  remuneration,  and  I  commenced  a  serial  story  called 
"  Arthur  Hargrave ;  or,  the  Uniform  of  Foolscap,"  of  which 
I  do  not  remember  much,  save  that  it  did  not  run  very 
long,  expirnig  with  the  magazine.  The  "  London  Corre- 
spondent's" letter  for  iha  Inverness  Courier,  the  property 
of  Dr.  Carruthers,  and  one  of  the  most  important  of 
northern  journals,  which  had  been  originally  written  by 
Angus  Reach,  and  afterwards  by  Shirley  Brooks,  was 
made  over  to  me,  and  was  for  years  a  regular,  if  small, 
source  of  income.  More  important  in  every  way  was  the 
offer  I  received  from  Mr.  J.  R.  Robinson,  my  former  col- 
league on  the  Weekly  Chronicle,  who  had  now  become  edi- 
tor of  the  Uxjyress,  the  then  evening  edition  of  the  Daily 
News,  to  do  some  work  for  him,  and  occasionally,  when 
an  extra  hand  was  wanted,  to  write  a  dramatic  criticism 
for  the  last-named  journal.  There  was,  of  course,  a  regu- 
lar dramatic  critic,  but  he  was  of  a  somewhat  erratic  habit, 
and  Mr.  Robinson  promised,  in  case  the  post  became  va- 
cant, to  use  his  best  endeavors  to  get  me  appointed.  As  it 
happened,  I  had  only  had  the  occasional  employment  dur- 
ing some  twelve  months,  when  the  regular  critic,  who  suf- 
fered from  heart-disease,  fell  dead  in  the  street ;  and  after 
a  little  interval,  during  wdiich  trial  was  made  of  the  ser- 
yices  of  a  gentleman  who  had  certain  influence  with  the 
proprietors,  but  who  failed  to  give  satisfaction,  I  was  per- 
manently employed  on  the  staff  of  the  Daily  News. 

This  appointment  made  me  supremely  happy.  The  sal- 
ary was  four  pounds  a  week,  for  which  I  was  to  undertake 
the  whole  of  the  dramatic  criticism,  and  to  assist  in  the 
book  reviewing.  Any  other  articles  were  separately  paid 
for.  Taken  in  connection  with  my  Post-oflice  work  and 
my  other  journalistic  engagements,  this  new  berth  com- 
pletely filled  up  my  time.    Of  course  there  were  not  near- 


188  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ly  so  many  theatres  as  there  are  now ;  but  the  changes  in 
the  play-bills,  and  consequently  the  necessity  of  attend- 
ance, were  much  more  frequent,  and  I  was  kept  constant- 
ly supplied  with  books  for  notice.  Literature  of  the  light- 
est kind  was  generally  assigned  to  me  ;  but  I  must  have 
had  books  of  all  sorts  sent,  as  among  my  Daily  JVeios  re- 
views, which  I  have  preserved,  I  find  long  notices  of  Char- 
lotte Bronte's  "Professor"  and  of  Aytoun's  "Bothwell."* 
When  the  theatrical  season  was  over,  I  wrote  for  the 
Daily  News  a  series  of  semi  -  personal,  semi  -  professional 
sketches  of  the  principal  London  players,  and  a  long  de- 

*  Here  is  a  funny  story  in  connection  with  this.  My  friend  John  Hol- 
lingshead,  who  would  occasionally  help  me  with  my  book  -  notices,  once 
asked  me  what  I  knew  about  Pope.  I  replied,  I  knew  the  "  Rape  of  the 
Lock,"  "  Essay  on  Man,"  "  Universal  Prayer,"  etc.  But  what  did  I  know 
of  Pope's  life,  friends,  surroundings  ?  Nothing,  I  frankly  answered ; 
why  did  he  ask?  Because  an  important  book,  Carruthers's  "Life  of 
Pope,"  would  shortly  be  published.  A  friend  of  his  (Ilollingshead's)  was, 
with  perhaps  one  exception,  the  best-informed  Pope  man  in  the  world ; 
and  if  I  would  hand  over  the  book,  this  fi'iend  should  write  the  notice ; 
but  it  was  to  be  sent  in  with  my  notices,  and  nothing  was  to  be  said  as  to 
whose  work  it  was.  The  friend  proved  to  be  William  Moy  Thomas.  The 
book  was  duly  sent  to  him,  and  duly  returned  witii  a  long  and  admirable 
review,  full  of  special  knowledge,  which  I  forwarded  with  my  "copy" 
as  usual.  It  appeared  the  next  day.  I  took  care  not  to  go  near  the  of- 
fice, but  heard  that  Mr.  Weir,  the  editor,  was  wonder-struck  at  its  evidence 
of  thorough  ac(|uaintance  with  the  subject.  But  there  was  some  one  else 
who  was  also  struck  in  the  same  manner.  This  was  the  "  perhaps  one 
exception"  mentioned  by  HoUingshead  —  none  other  than  Mr.  Charles 
Wentworth  Dilke,  grandfather  of  the  present  baronet,  ex-editor  of  the 
At/ietueum,  who  knew  everything  possible  about  Pope  and  his  times.  Moy 
Thomas  had  been  his  secretary  and  quasi-pupil :  they  had  had  long  and 
frequent  discussions  on  Pope  matters;  consc<iuently,  directly  Mr.  Dilke 
saw  tiie  Dai/i/  Ncidr  notice,  he  guessed  who  had  written  it.  But  so  much 
interest  did  lu;  take  in  the  subject  that  he  set  off  for  the  newspaper  office, 
and  saw  his  old  friend  Weir.  Of  him,  after  praising  the  review,  he  asked 
who  wrote  it.  "  Quite  a  young  man  of  the  name  of  Yates,"  he  was  in- 
formed. Impossiide!  no  young  man  of  such  a  name  could  have  half  so 
much  special  knowledge.  There  was  only  one  man  in  London  could  have 
written  it.  Well,  the  book  was  sent  to  Yafes,  ami  the  review  came  from 
him;  that  was  all  the  editor  could  say.  Mr.  Dilke  pretended  to  be  con- 
vinced; but  having  been  himself  former  editor  of  the  Daily  News,  he 
knew  tin-  master-printer,  through  whom  he  got  a  glimpse  of  the  MS.,  and 
aatiuried  himaelf  be  wao  right. 


EARLY  MARRIED  LIFE.  189 

scription  of  society  at  Baden,  whither  my  wife  ami  I  had 
gone,  in  company  with  Albert  Smith,  who  took  that  place 
and  the  Rhine  as  his  new  route  to  Mont  Blanc. 

We  were  a  very  happy  and  united  body  at  the  Dally 
News  office,  and  from  my  employers  and  colleagues  I  re- 
ceived the  greatest  kindness  and  consideration.  Some- 
times I  was  invited  to  one  of  the  weekly  "  house-dinners  " 
held  at  the  Rainbow  or  Dick's,  in  Fleet  Street,  where  I 
would  find  our  principal  proprietor,  Mr,  George  Smith,  a 
lawyer  of  Golden  Square,  who  did  not  afterwards  prove 
quite  such  a  clever  man  of  business  as  he  had  been  reck- 
oned;  Mr.  Weir,  our  chief  editor  —  kindest,  dearest,  and 
deafest  of  Scotch  gentlemen  ;  Mr.  Thomas  Walker,  the 
sub-editor  ;  Mr.  Robinson,  editor  of  the  evening  edition  ; 
and  some  of  the  leader  writers,  generally  Mr.  McCullagli 
Torrens,  Mr. — now  Sir  Joseph — Arnould,  and  Mr. — now 
Professor  —  Baynes.  Among  the  members  of  the  staff 
were  Mr.  George  Hogarth,  the  musical  critic,  father  of 
Mrs.  Dickens ;  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  secretary  ;  Mr.  Copping 
and  Mr.  Dyer,  sub-editors  ;  Mr.  Murphy,  an  Irish  gallery- 
man  and  reporter,  exact  prototype  of  Thackeray's  Hoolau 
and  Doolan  ;  Mr.  Godfrey  Turner ;  and,  later  on,  Mr. 
Pigott.  There  was  also  a  foreign  sub-editor,  whose  name 
I  forget — a  very  eccentric  person.  He  was  supposed  to 
be  a  great  linguist ;  but  he  remains  in  my  mind  for  his 
great  contempt  and  hatred  of  Dickens,  a  subject  on  which 
he  was  always  enlarging.  So  profound  was  this  contempt 
that  he  would  never  mention  Dickens  by  name  :  he  used 
to  allude  to  him  as  "that  fellow,  you  know  —  Hogarth's 
son-in-UiAV  !" 

On  the  7th  of  May,  1856,  I  made  my  first  appearance 
in  Household  Words,  with  a  short  story  called  "A  Fear- 
ful Night,"  and  encouraged  by  Dickens  and  by  the  as- 
sistant editor,  William  Henry  Wills,  who,  from  that  time 
to  the  day  of  his  death,  was  one  of  my  best  friends,  I  be- 
came a  frequent  contributor.  About  the  same  time,  too, 
Messrs.  Routledge  published  "  Our  Miscellany,"  a  collection 
of  prose  and  verse  sketches,  contributed  by  Robert  Brough 
and  myself  to  various  magazines,  with  a  cover,  on  which 
the  authors  were  admirably  caricatured  by  C.  H.  Bennett, 


190  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

My  first  essay  in  dramatic  writing,  in  collaboration  with 
a  Post-ofiice  friend  named  Harrington,  was  a  riotous  and 
ridiculous,  but  at  the  same  time  an  exceedingly  funny, 
farce  called  "A  Night  at  Netting  Hill,"  the  theme  be- 
ing the  burglaries  at  the  time  prevalent  in  that  suburb, 
which  was  produced  at  the  Adelphi  in  the  early  days  of 
January,  1857.  Harrington,  who  had  been  a  professional 
actor,  was  well  up  to  the  requirements  of  the  stage,  and 
we  scored  a  distinct  success.  Wright,  as  an  alderman 
terrified  at  the  notion  of  having  his  house  broken  into, 
was  exceedingly  comic,  and  he  was  Avell  seconded  by  Paul 
Bedford  as  a  Life  Guardsman,  hired  to  protect  the  prem- 
ises. The  press  were  heartily  unanimous  in  their  recep- 
tion of  this  trifle,  which  had  a  run  of  over  a  hundred 
nights.  Emboldened  by  our  success,  my  partner  and  I  at 
once  went  to  work  on  another  farce,  which  we  read  to 
Mr.  J.  L.  Toole,  whose  acquaintance  I  had  made  a  year  or 
two  before,  when  I  went  with  Albert  Smith  to  the  Wal- 
worth Institution,  and  heard  Mr.  Toole,  then  an  amateur, 
give  a  very  funny  entertainment.  lie  had  now  made  his 
mark  as  a  professional  comedian,  and  was  playing  at  the 
Lyceum,  under  the  management  of  Mr.  Charles  Dillon. 

Mr.  Toole  received  our  farce  very  favorably,  and  rec- 
ommended it  to  his  manager,  by  whom  it  was  accepted. 
It  was  called  "My  Friend  from  Leatherhead,"  and  was 
produced  on  the  23d  of  February,  185  7,  with  Mr.  Toole 
as  the  hero,  while  a  small  part  of  a  lady's  maid  was  made 
conspicuous  by  the  excellent  way  in  which  it  was  filled  by 
Miss  M.  Wilton — now  Mrs.  Bancroft.  When  I  saw,  next 
morning,  that  Oxcnford  had  given  us  a  notice  of  full  half 
a  column  in  tlie  Tunes,  I  had  no  doubt  of  our  success. 
Dining  the  next  few  years,  always  in  conjunction  with 
Harrington,  I  Avrote  several  successful  farces;  a  comedi- 
etta, called  "If  the  Cap  Fits,"  the  last  piece  produced  by 
Mr.  Charles  Kcan  in  liis  management  of  the  Princess's, 
was  of  a  (lifTorcnt  f/enrc,  of  neater  construction,  and  more 
jiolislu'd  dialogue.  It  was  adiiiii-.iMy  acted  l)y,  among 
otiiers,  Mr.  Frank  Malthews,  Mr.  Walter  Lacy,  and — Miss 
Ellen  Terry,  soon  after  slie  entered  the  j^rofession  :  she 
played  a  juvenile  grooju,  a  "tiger,"  with  great  spirit  and 


EAKLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  191 

vivacity.  One  of  the  "  entertainments  "  given  at  tlic  Gal- 
lery of  Illustration  about  this  time,  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ger- 
man Reed,  was  also  from  my  pen. 

Early  in  June  this  year  ('57)  England  lost  one  of  her 
wittiest  sons — Douglas  Jerrold.  Though  never  intimate 
with  him,  I  had  often  been  in  his  company,  and  had  heard 
him  flash  forth  the  biting  epigram  and  quick  repartee  for 
which  in  our  day  he  has  had  no  rival,  A  small,  delicate- 
ly-formed, bent  man,  with  long  gray  hair  combed  back 
from  his  forehead,  with  gray  eyes  deep  set  under  pent- 
house brows,  and  a  Avay,  just  as  the  inspiration  seized  him, 
of  dangling  a  double  eye-glass,  which  hung  round  his  neck 
by  a  broad  black  ribbon  ;  a  kindly  man  for  all  his  bitter 
tongue,  replying  most  courteously  to  a  complaint  against 
one  of  his  staff,  which  I  brought  before  him  years  ago, 
and  taking  care  that  justice  was  done  ;  soft  and  easy  with 
women  and  children. 

Years  before,  I  had  been  one  of  a  party  which  had  es- 
corted him,  after  the  successful  production  of  one  of  his 
comedies — "The  Catsj^aw,"  I  think — to  the  Bedford  Ho- 
tel in  Covent  Garden,  where  sujjper  was  prepared.  Jer- 
rold was  flushed  with  triumph,  but  his  bodily  strength 
was  small,  and  he  hung  on  to  my  arm.  As  we  went  up 
New  Street,  we  met  two  or  three  drunken  roisterers,  one 
of  whom,  after  tumbling  up  against  me,  apologized,  and 
asked  "  the  way  to  the  Judge  and  Jury,"  a  popular  en- 
tertainment of  the  day.  Instantly  Jerrold  bent  forward 
and  addressed  him  :  "  Straight  on,  young  man.  Continue 
in  the  path  you're  now  pursuing,  and  you  can't  fail  to 
come  to  them  !"  It  was  to  Peter  Cunningham,  mention- 
ing his  fondness  for  calves'  feet,  that  Jerrold  said,  "  Ex- 
tremes meet  ;"  to  Mrs.  Alfred  Wigan,  expressing  her  fear 
that  her  hair  had  been  turned  gray  by  the  application  of 
some  strong  stimulant,  he  said,  "  I  know  —  essence  of 
thyme  !"  He  was  brought  to  the  Fielding  Club  once  as  a 
guest,  and  was  sitting  there  when  the  door  opened,  and 
Albert  Smith  appeared.  "Mont  Blanc  is  the  monarch  of 
mountains  !"  cried  some  one,  in  would-be  facetious  salu- 
tation. "  Yes,"  said  Jerrold,  "  and  Albert  '  half-crowned 
him  long  ago  !' " 


192  FIFTY   YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  in  which  Jerrold  died,  Mr, 
Benjamin  Webster  had  a  pleasant  gathering  of  friends  at 
his  quaint  old  house  by  Kennington  Church,  to  celebrate 
the  birthday  of  his  daughter.  Jerrold  was  there,  playing 
"whist ;  in  the  adjoining  room  they  were  dancing.  Touch- 
ing him  on  the  shoulder,  I  asked,  "  Who  is  that  man,  Jer- 
rold, there,  dancing  with  Mrs.  Jerrold  ?"  He  looked  round 
for  an  instant,  through  the  open  door.  "  God  knows,  my 
dear  boy !"  he  replied  ;  "  some  member  of  the  Humane 
Society,  I  suppose  !"  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  little 
more  than  a  week  before  his  death,  at  a  Sunday  Green- 
wich dinner,  given  by  W.  H.  Russell,  at  which  Dickens, 
Delane,  Mowbray  Morris,  Albert  and  Arthur  Smith,  and 
many  others  were  present.  Jerrold,  who  looked  very  ill, 
and  told  me  he  was  having  his  house  done  up^  and  was 
*'  poisoned  by  the  paint,"  had  been  brought  down  by 
Dickens  in  the  steamer.  He  was  very  ^Jia^/o,  and  I  heard 
him  attempt  only  one  joke :  when  Russell  asked  Albert 
Smith  to  ring  the  bell  for  dinner,  Jerrold  said,  "Yes,  Al- 
bert, why  don't  you  ring  that  bell(e)  ?''  in  allusion  to  ru- 
mors then  rife  of  an  engagement  between  A.  S.  and  Miss 
Keeley,  whom  he  afterwards  married.  Jerrold  went  away 
early,  took  to  his  bed,  and  died  on  the  Monday  week. 

On  the  morning  of  the  funeral  I  had  a  letter  from  Dick- 
ens, asking  me  to  dine  at  the  Garrick,  as  he  wanted  to 
talk  to  me  on  a  matter  of  business.  I  went,  and  found 
Albert  and  Arthur  Smith  of  the  party.  They  had  all 
been  to  the  ceremony  at  Norwood  in  the  morning,  and 
Dickens  spoke  very  strongly  of  the  fuss  and  flourish  with 
which  it  had  been  conducted.  The  mourners,  it  seemed, 
wore  bands  of  craj>e  with  the  initials  "D.  J."  round  their 
arms,  and  there  was  a  funeral-car,  of  which  Dickens  de- 
clared he  heard  one  old  woman  in  the  crowd  say  to  another 
that  it  was  "  just  like  the  lati-  Dook  o'  Wellinton's."  After 
dinner  we  had  pens,  ink,  and  paper,  and  Dickens  unfolded 
liis  scheme,  which  was  to  raise  a  fund  for  the  benefit  of 
Jerrold's  widow  and  family. 

It  was  to  be  done  in  the  most  delicate  manner,  and  all 
would  assist.  Thackeray  would  lecture,  so  would  W.  H. 
Russell  ;  Dickens  would  give  a  reading  ;  there  would  be 


EARLY  MARRIED   LIFE.  I93 

a  performance  of  "Black-Eyed  Susan"  at  the  Adelphi, 
with  the  veteran  T,  P.  Cooke  in  his  original  character ;  a 
performance  of  the  Dickens  troupe  of  amateurs  in  *'  The 
Frozen  Deep,"  etc.  One  great  point  was  to  let  the  public 
know  what  was  intended  instantly,  Avhile  Jerrold's  death 
was  fresh  in  their  minds  ;  another,  not  to  spend  too  much 
money  in  advertising.  "With  the  view  of  comhining  these 
desiderata,  Dickens  drew  up  a  short  memorandum  for  the 
committee,  which  he  asked  me  to  take  round  that  nigrht  to 
tlie  editors  of  the  principal  journals,  requesting  them  to 
publish  it  in  the  morning,  with  a  few  introductory  lines 
of  their  own. 

I  had  some  curious  experiences  that  evening.  I  first 
went  to  the  Morning  Post,  where  I  found  Mr.  (now  Sir) 
Algernon  Borthwick  in  evening  clothes,  with  a  smart 
smoking-jacket  substituted  for  his  dress-coat,  a  courteous 
gentleman,  polished  to  his  finger-tips.  Thence  to  the 
Morning  Chronicle,  in  the  Strand,  opjoosite  Somerset 
House,  where,  at  the  top  of  a  flight  of  dirty  stairs,  in  a 
typical  newspaper-room,  was  the  then  editor — genial,  jo- 
vial, handsome  Thomas  Littleton  Holt,  otherwise  known  as 
"Raggedy  Holt" — in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  with  a  foam- 
ing porter-pot  before  him.  Next,  to  the  Daily  Telegraph, 
then  in  its  infancy,  a  very  modest  establishment  in  the 
bend  of  the  Strand,  by  St.  Clement's  Church,  now  pulled 
down,  where  I  was,  of  course,  kindly  received  by  my  friend 
Mr.  J.  M.  Levy.  At  the  Advertiser  Mr.  James  Grant 
would  do  all  he  was  asked,  save  Avi-ite  the  introductory 
lines,  which  he  insisted  on  my  doing  then  and  there  ;  and 
at  the  Times  I  saw  Mr.  Delane,  who  came  out  to  me  when 
he  read  Dickens's  letter,  though  his  presence  at  the  office 
had  been  steadfastly  denied. 

The  programme  was  carried  out  in  its  entirety  with 
great  success,  the  sum  raised  being,  I  think,  over  two  thou- 
sand pounds.  Thackeray's  lecture  was  on  "Week-day 
Preachers,"  in  which  he  made  special  and  admirable  ref- 
erence to  Jerrold  ;  and  I  have  a  remembrance  of  Dickens 
in  connection  with  the  performance  of  "Black-Eyed  Su- 
san "  at  the  Adelphi,  which  always  makes  me  laugh.  The 
part  of  the  Admiral,  who  presides  over  the  coiart -martial 

9 


194  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LOXDOX   LIFE. 

by  which  the  hero  William  is  condemned  to  death,  was 
played  by  a  stolid-faced  creature,  a  brother  of  Paul  Bed- 
ford. Dickens  said  to  me  at  supper  that  night,  "  I  had 
a  strong  idea  that  Bedford's  brother  meant  to  acquit 
William,  and  that  all  the  rest  of  the  play  would  go  to 
the  devil !" 

As  may  be  readily  imagined,  I  had  not  very  much  lei- 
sure in  the  midst  of  all  this  employment,  but  such  as  I  had 
was  always  pleasantly  passed.  Sundays  with  us  were  al- 
ways "  Sundays  out " — at  Skindle's,  at  that  time  a  delight- 
fully quiet  place,  with  no  lawn,  no  river-rooms,  no  neigh- 
boring Guards'  Club;  at  Thames  Ditton;  at  Richmond;  at 
the  Swan  at  Staines;  at  Laker's  Hotel  at  Redhill — some- 
times my  wife  and  I  alone,  oftener  with  the  Keeleys  and 
Albert  and  a  party.  On  Friday  nights  there  was  always 
a  gathering  in  Gower  Street,  at  the  house  of  Abraham 
Solomon,  who  had  just  made  a  hit  with  his  picture,  "Wait- 
ing for  the  Verdict,"  where  Avould  be  Millais  with  his 
"  Huguenot "  success  upon  him,  young  and  handsome,  as 
in  the  medallion  which  Alexander  Munro  had  just  com- 
])leted  of  him;  and  Frith,  putting  the  finishing  touches  to 
liis  "  Derby  Day  ;"  Frank  Stone,  Augustus  Egg,  and  Sant ; 
Dutton  Cook,  undecided  whether  to  take  to  pen  or  pencil 
as  his  means  of  living;  Ernest  Hart,  whose  sister  Solomon 
afterwards  married;  and  William  Fenn.  A  quietly  Bo- 
hemian evening :  a  little  dancing,  a  few  games  of  "  ton- 
neau,"  a  cai)ital  supper  with  a  specialty  of  cold  fish,  then 
cigars,  and  singing  by  Frank  Topham  or  Desanges,  and 
imitations  by  Dillon  Croker,  "and  so  home." 

Gatherings  on  a  larger  scale  at  Mr.  Gambart's,  the 
princely  picture-dealer,  first  in  Berners  Street,  afterwards 
in  the  Regent's  Park  ;  dances  at  Mr.  Jacob  Bell's,  admi- 
rably superintended  by  the  host's  alter  ego,  Mr.  "Tom" 
Hills  ;  frequent  festivity  in  connection  with  the  Mont 
Blanc  entertainment  ;*  and  a  general  "  good  time." 


•  There  wnfl  always  a  large  RntlicrinR  nt  the  Egyptian  Hall  on  the  night 
preceding  a  change  in  the  form  of  cnlcrtiiinnient.  There  was  a  liberal 
Hiipply  of  champagne;  Mr.  Rule,  the  well-known  Irailler  of  Maiden  Lane, 
and  Ihh  son.s,  presided  over  a  long  counter,  and  served  out  oysters  and 


EARLY   MARRIED   LIFE.  195 

Prominent  among  the  houses  to  which  we  went  most 
frequently,  and  where  we  were  most  heartily  welcomed, 
was  that  of  our  neighbor  in  Doughty  Street,  Mr.  J.  M. 
Levy,  who  had  just  acquired  the  Daily  Telegraph  proper- 
ty, and  was  concentrating  on  it  all  his  zeal,  acumen,  and 
experience  to  make  his  venture  a  success.  He  was  ably 
seconded  by  his  son  Edward,  who  at  that  time  wrote  the 
dramatic  criticisms  among  other  work,  and  was  conse- 
quently my  constant  companion  at  the  theatre.  The  Sun- 
day night  reunions  at  Mr.  Levy's  are  among  my  pleasant- 


bread-and-butter  ;  and  hot  baked  potatoes  were  dispensed  by  a  man  de- 
scribed in  the  programme  as  "  Tatur  Khan."  The  style  of  invitation  was 
always  peculiar.  I  annex  one,  lithographed  on  thin  paper,  in  passport 
form,  which  was  issued  to  all  intended  guests  in  '55 : 

"We,  Albert  Smith,  one  of  her  Britannic  Majesty's  representatives  on 
the  sunmiit  of  Mont  Blanc,  Knight  of  the  most  noble  order  of  the  Grands 
Mulcts,  Baron  Gaiignani  of  Piccadilly,  Knight  of  the  Grand  Crossing  from 
Burlington  Arcade  to  the  Egyptian  Hall,  Member  of  the  Society  for  the 
Confusion  of  Useless  Knowledge,  Secretary  for  his  own  Affairs,  etc.,  etc. 

"Request  and  require,  in  the  name  of  his  Majesty  the  Monarch  of 
Mountain.*,  all  those  whom  it  may  concern,  more  especially  the  Police  on 

the  Piccadilly  Frontier,  to  allow to  pass  freely  in  at  the  street-door 

of  the  Egyptian  Hall,  and  up-stairs  to  the  Mont  Blanc  Room,  on  the  even- 
ing of  Saturday,  Dec.  1,  1855,  at  8  p.m.,  and  to  afford  him  every  assistance 
in  the  way  of  oysters,  stout,  champagne,  soda  -  and  -  brandy,  and  other  aid 
of  which  he  may  stand  in  need. 

"Given  at  the  Box-office, Piccadilly,  28th  day  of  November,  1855. 

"  Albert  Smith. 

"  God  save  the  Queen ! 

"  Vu  au  bureau  de  la  Salle.  Bon  pour  entrer  Piccadilly^  par  V Arcade  de 
Burlington.  Truefitt. 

"Samedi,  Ist  December,  1855. 

"Viseed  for  the  Garrick  and  Fielding  Clubs,  the  Vaults  below  the 
Houses  of  Parliament,  Trucfitt's  Hair-cutting  Saloon,  the  Glacier  do  Gun- 
ter,  Jullien's,  Laurent's,  the  Cafe  de  I'Europe,  Pratt's,  Limmer's,  and  all 
other  places  on  the  Rhine,  between  Rule's  Marine  Museum,  or  Appetizing 
Aquarium,  and  the  Jolly  Grenadier  public  -  house.  No.  1  Ellison  Square, 
Pall  Mall,  South  Sebastopol.  Rule. 

"Notice. — By  the  recent  police  enactments  regulating  large  assemblies 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Piccadilly,  this  passport  must  be  considered  as 
available  for  one  person  only,  and  docs  not  include  the  '  friend '  who  has 
always  been  dining  with  the  bearer." 


196  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

est  reminiscences ;  but  there  was  no  time  at  which  we 
were  not  received  and  treated  as  jiart  of  the  family.  It 
is  always  agreeable  to  me  to  think  that  I  was  enabled,  in- 
cidentally, to  do  my  friends  real  service  by  introducing 
to  them  two  gentlemen,  Mr.  G.  A.  Sala  and  the  Hon.  F. 
Lawley,  who  have  greatly  contributed  to  the  enormous 
success  which  the  Daily  Telegraph  has  attained. 
The  next  year,  1858,  was  one  of  vast  importance  to  me. 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  197 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

EARLY    EDITORSHIPS. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1855,  when  I  was  twenty-four, 
and  had  been  married  about  a  couple  of  years,  that  I 
made  my  first  acquaintance  with  the  denizens  of  British 
Bohemia — that  I  became  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
our  equivalent  for  that  vie  de  Boheme  which  half  a  cen- 
tury ago,  despite  its  uncertainty,  its  poverty,  and  in  many 
cases  its  misery,  had,  in  its  wild  and  picturesque  freedom 
from  conventionality,  sufficient  attraction  to  captivate  a 
large  section  of  the  young  men  of  Paris,  and  which  found 
its  brilliant  historian  in  the  unfortunate  Henri  Miirger. 
Our  British  Bohemia,  as  it  existed  in  the  days  of  which  I 
am  writing — I  am  doubtful  whether  it  exists  at  all  now — 
differed  in  many  respects  from  that  fanciful  territory  in- 
habited by  Schaunard  and  his  comrades.  It  was  less  pict- 
uresque, it  was  more  practical  and  commonplace,  perhaps 
a  trifle  more  vulgar  ;  but  its  denizens  had  this  in  common 
with  their  French  prototypes — that  they  were  young, 
gifted,  and  reckless  ;  that  they  worked  only  by  fits  and 
starts,  and  never  except  under  the  pressure  of  necessity; 
that  they  were  sometimes  at  the  height  of  happiness,  some- 
times in  the  depths  of  despair,  but  that  ordinarily  they 
passed  their  lives 

"  little  caring  what  might  come  ; 
Coffee-milling  care  and  sorrow  with  a  nose-adapted  thumb ;" 

and  that — greatest  item  of  resemblance — they  had  a  thor- 
ough contempt  for  the  dress,  usages,  and  manners  of  ordi- 
nary middle -class  civilization.  The  word  "Philistine," 
with  its  now  accepted  signification,  had  not  been  invented 
by  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  in  those  days ;  but  the  class  which 
it  represents  existed,  of  course,  and  was  the  object  of  gen- 
eral loathing  and  contempt  on  the  part  of  the  Bohemians. 


198  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

British  Bohemia  as  it  was  then  has  been  most  admira- 
bly described  by  Thackeray  in  "  Philip  :"  "  A  pleasant 
land,  not  fenced  with  drab  stucco,  like  Belgravia  or  Ty- 
burnia ;  not  guarded  by  a  large  standing  army  of  foot- 
men ;  not  echoing  with  noble  chariots ;  not  replete  with 
polite  chintz  drawing-rooms  and  neat  tea-tables — a  land 
over  which  hangs  an  endless  fog,  occasioned  by  much  to- 
bacco ;  a  land  of  chambers,  billiard  -  rooms,  and  oyster- 
suppers  ;  a  land  of  song  ;  a  land  where  soda-water  flows 
freely  in  the  morning  ;  a  land  of  tin  dish-covers  from  tav- 
erns and  foaming  porter  ;  a  land  of  lotos-eating  (with  lots 
of  cayenne  pepper),  of  pulls  on  the  river,  of  delicious 
reading  of  novels,  magazines,  and  saunterings  in  many 
studios;  a  land  where  all  men  call  each  other  by  their 
Christian  names  ;  where  most  are  poor,  where  almost  all 
are  young,  and  where,  if  a  few  oldsters  enter,  it  is  because 
they  have  preserved  more  tenderly  and  carefully  than 
others  their  youthful  spirits  and  the  delightful  capacity 
to  be  idle.  I  have  lost  my  way  to  Bohemia  now,"  adds 
the  philosopher,  writing  in  the  enjoyment  of  fame  and 
riches ;  "  but,"  he  adds  with  a  tender  regret,  "  it  is  cer- 
tain that  Prague  is  the  most  picturesque  city  in  the 
world." 

From  the  circumstances  of  my  life  —  my  early  mar- 
riage, the  regular  habits  formed  by,  and  necessary  for, 
my  holding  my  appointment  in  the  Post-office,  and  from 
a  certain  distaste  for  a  good  deal  of  what  formed  an  in- 
tegral portion  of  the  career — I  was  never  a  real  Bohe- 
mian. But  when  my  lot  was  cast  among  them,  and  wlun 
they  saw  that,  though  not  "to  the  manner  born,"  I  had 
many  tastes  and  pursuits  in  common  with  theirs,  I  grad- 
ually won  my  way  into  their  regard,  and  formed  many 
close  friendships,  some  of  which  happily  exist  to  this 
day,  while  others  are  among  the  pleasantest  memories  of 
my  life. 

How  it  was  that  I  first  made  ao(iuaintance  with  Bo- 
hemia liai)pened  thus.  I  have  already  mentioned  my  early 
essay  in  verse-writing  for  the  UlustraWd  London  Nl'ws. 
The  connection  thus  commenced  had  been  extended  by 
ray  receiving  from  time  to  time  proofs  of  wood-engrav- 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  199 

ings,  for  which  I  was  desired  to  furnish  appropriate  de- 
scriptive letter-press.  One  day  I  had  a  note  from  Dr. 
Charles  Mackay,  then  editor  of  the  Illustrated  London 
News,  wishing  to  see  me.  I  called  in  the  afternoon,  ex- 
pecting to  get  one  of  the  usual  little  commissions  ;  but 
when  I  found  him  sitting  with  his  trusty  assistant,  Mr. 
John  Timbs,  the  well-known  book-compiler,  I  soon  per- 
ceived from  his  manner  that  he  had  something  more  im- 
portant to  communicate.  What  he  said,  in  fact,  was  that 
there  had  been  a  dispute  between  Mr.  Ingram,  our  pro- 
prietor, and  Messrs.  Bradbury  &  Evans,  the  printers,  over 
some  trade  matter;  that  the  quarrel  had  rapidly  assumed 
large  proportions  ;  and  that  Mr.  Ingram  had  determined 
not  merely  to  put  an  end  to  all  business  relations  between 
himself  and  the  Whitefriars  firm,  but  to  carry  the  war 
into  the  enemy's  country  by  starting  at  once  a  comic 
paper  as  a  rival  to  Punch.  He  had  talked  the  question 
out  with  Dr.  Mackay,  who,  recognizing,  as  he  was  good 
enough  to  say,  some  brightness  and  freshness  in  my  work, 
had  kindly  recommended  me  as  the  editor.  The  pecun- 
iary arrangements  would  be  very  liberal.  Would  I  under- 
take the  position  ? 

Of  course  I  accepted  at  once — in  those  days  I  would 
have  undertaken  to  edit  the  Times  or  the  Quarterly  Re- 
view if  I  had  had  the  oflEer — and  I  was  taken  off  to  be 
introduced  to  Mr.  Ingram,  and  hear  more  of  the  details 
of  the  scheme.  I  found  him  a  little  man,  with  bright 
eyes,  sharp  features,  and  decided  manner ;  he  was  dressed 
in  ill  -  fitting  clothes,  and  had  a  white  beaver  hat  with 
very  long  nap,  like  a  country  farmer.  He  was  rather 
uncouth,  very  brusque,  and  without  much  claim  to  edu- 
cation ;  but  he  was  an  excellent  man  of  business,  and  to 
me  always  liberal,  kind,  and  encouraging.  He  shook 
hands  with  me,  heard  what  I  had  to  say,  offered  me  a 
salary  which  was  good,  and  which  I  thought  princely, 
told  me  the  names  of  the  printers,  where  to  present  my 
accounts,  and  left  the  engagement  of  staff  and  artists  and 
the  entire  management  in  my  hands. 

Only  two  things  he  stipulated  for — that  the  name  of 
the  paper  should  be  the  Comic  Times,  and  that  its  price 


200  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

should  be  one  penny.  These  were  very  important  items. 
I  ventured  to  say — with  great  internal  annoyance  at  be- 
ing compelled  so  soon  to  differ  from  my  proprietor's 
views — that  to  issue  a  journal  with  the  label  of  being 
professedly  comic  attached  to  it  was  a  sure  way  to  pro- 
voke criticism  ;  while  in  regard  to  the  price,  the  experi- 
ment of  cheap  journalism  was  in  its  earliest  infancy,  the 
Daily  Telegraph  having  only  been  launched  a  few  weeks 
previously  ;  and  I  pointed  out  that  it  would  be  highly 
difficult  to  obtain  the  confidence  of  advertisers  for  a  new 
and  low-jjriced  venture.  But  Mr.  Ingram  on  these  two 
points  was  inflexible,  and  of  course  I  had  to  give  way. 

It  was  a  difficult  position  before  me,  with  a  very  lim- 
ited experience  of  journalism,  and  no  experience  at  all  of 
editing,  and  with  the  thorough  knowledge  that  whatever 
I  might  do  would  be  severely  criticised  by  the  hundreds 
of  men  who  would  think,  and  not  without  reason,  that 
they  ought  to  be  in  my  place.  Mr.  Ingram,  in  our  short 
conversation,  had  expressed  his  hope,  and  almost  his  ex- 
pectation, that  we  should  soon  rival  "old  Poonclif  and 
Punch  Avas  at  its  very  best  in  those  days,  with  the  re- 
flection of  Thackeray  still  on  it,  with  Leech  never  more 
bright  or  more  industrious,  with  Shirley  Brooks  doing 
his  very  utmost — and  there  has  never  been  so  good  an 
all-round  wi-iter  for  a  comic  journal — to  prove  how  wrong 
the  Punch  staff  had  been  to  keep  him  so  long  out  of  their 
close  borough,  and  how  right  they  were  to  have  let  him 
in  at  last;  and,  worst  of  all  for  me,  with  Mark  Lemon 
fur  its  editor.  Not  that  Lemon  was  in  any  way  a  brill- 
iant or  even  a  suggestive  man  ;  but  he  had  had  long 
practice  in  editing  and  long  experience  of  his  contribu- 
tors— knew  what  each  man  did  best,  and  how  most  easily 
to  get  him  to  do  it.  While,  under  the  cloak  of  corpulent 
good-nature  and  jollity,  In-  was  exceedingly  crafty  and 
ruHc,  as  the  head  ni:ui  of  INIossrs.  Bradburj'  &  Evans  he 
would  naturally  depreciate  the  work  in  the  Comic  Times ; 
and,  as  the  jjrivate  secretary  of  Mr.  Ingram — a  position 
which  lie  then  held — he  would  have  every  opjjortnnity  of 
doing  HO  in  a  very  important  (piarter.  However,  I  had 
embarked  on  my  enterprise,  and  was  determined  to  carry 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  201 

it  through  ;  so  I  went  off  at  once  to  get  advice,  and,  if 
possible,  assistance,  from  Albert  Smith. 

I  found  him,  as  usual,  in  his  foreign  blue  blouse,  pot- 
tering about  in  his  sanctum  in  Percy  Street,  than  which 
there  never  was  such  another  room  for  the  collection  of 
extraordinary  valueless  curiosities,  prints,  pictures,  plas- 
ter-casts, and  quasi-artistic  rubbish  of  every  possible  de- 
scription, thickly  overlaid  with  dust.  He  was  delighted 
at  the  chance  of  my  getting  work  and  money,  and  while 
declaring  it  impossible  he  could  himself  write — for  the 
Mont  Blanc  entertainment  was  then  at  the  height  of  its 
poj)ularity,  and  absorbed  all  his  attention — he  discussed 
the  matter  with  me  ;  and  before  I  left  him  we  had  jotted 
down  the  names  of  several  men  —  some  acquaintances, 
some  strangers — out  of  whom  the  staff  was  to  be  formed. 

One  of  the  first  of  these  names  was  that  of  Edward 
Draper,  a  solicitor  in  Westminster,  who  was  Albert's  legal 
adviser,  and  who  is  happily  still  living.  A  man  with  a 
vast  amount  of  dry  humor,  which  found  its  vent  now  in 
prose,  now  in  verse,  now  in  rough,  but  exceedingly  ludi- 
crous, sketches  on  wood — a  practical  man,  sure  to  be  ready 
yviih  his  "  copy  "  in  due  time,  and  certain  never  to  write 
anything  actionable.  Mi*.  Draper  was  a  most  desirable 
contributor,  and  has  been  through  my  life  a  valued  friend. 
He  introduced  Godfrey  Turner,  at  that  time  acting  as 
sub-editor  of  the  John  Jjull,  whose  real  literary  status 
has  never,  as  I  venture  to  think,  been  proj^erly  recognized. 
Of  my  own  personal  friends  I  named  Frank  Scudamore, 
W.  P.  Hale,  and  John  Oxenford. 

F.  I.  Scudamore,  afterwards  so  well  known  for  his  man- 
agement of  the  Government  telegraphs,  for  which  he  ob- 
tained a  C.B.-ship,  was  at  that  time  a  f  elloAV-clerk  of  mine 
in  the  General  Post-office.  Some  years  my  senior,  he  had 
already  attracted  my  admiration  by  my  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  he  was  already  an  accepted  contributor  to  Punch, 
many  most  admirable  sets  of  verses  from  his  pen  having 
appeared  therein.  I  shall  have  other  opportunities  of 
mentioning  Mr.  Scudamore,  but  I  may  here  place  on  rec- 
ord my  opinion  that  of  all  the  men  I  have  known  in  my 
long  experience,  there  was  scarcely  one  to  beat  him.     His 

9* 


202  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

powers  or  organization  at  the  height  of  his  career  were 
confessedly  wonderful,  he  was  a  sound  classical  scholar, 
wrote  by  far  the  best  "  light "  verse  of  any  man  living, 
was  a  most  effective  speaker,  and  had  the  keenest  sense 
of  humor.  His  versatility  was  marvellous  ;  he  could  per- 
suade a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  into  disbursing  mill- 
ions, and  turn  out  a  political  parody  with  a  lilting  re- 
frain which  would  be  quoted  throughout  the  provincial 
press. 

William  Palmer  Hale,  known  to  every  one  as  "Billy" 
Hale,  was  the  eldest  son  of  the  Archdeacon  of  London, 
educated  at  Charter-house  and  Oxford,  and  a  member  of 
the  Bar.  My  old  friend,  Thomas  Knox  Holmes,  who  oc- 
casionally gave  Hale  work  before  parliamentary  commit- 
tees, always  maintained  that  it  was  exceedingly  well 
done  ;  but  Billy's  taste  was  more  for  literature  than  law, 
and  after  he  had  obtained  a  fair  amount  of  success  by 
writing  burlesques  in  collaboration  with  Frank  Talfourd 
(the  judge's  eldest  son),  one  of  which,  "The  Willow  Pat- 
tern Plate,"  made  a  great  mark  in  the  early  Swanborough 
Strand  days,  he  did  not  much  trouble  the  Courts.  He 
was  a  great  beer-drinker,  and  though  the  story  has  been 
told  of  others,  it  was  of  him  Thackeray  said,  and  said  to 
me,  "Good  Billy  Hale,  take  him  for  half-and-half,  we 
ne'er  shall  look  upon  his  like  again  !"  E.  L.  Blanchard, 
the  well-known  critic  and  dramatic  writer,  was  introduced 
to  me  by  Albert  Smith,  and  proved  a  valuable  member  of 
our  crew. 

I\ry  ac(]uaintancc  Avilh  John  Oxenford,  begun  some  year 
or  two  ju-cviously,  had  speedily  rii)L'ned  into  intimate 
friendship  ;  for  thougli  he  was  nearly  twenty  years  my 
senior,  a  strong  and  original  thinker  on  many  abstruse 
subjects,  and  i)erhaps  of  all  Englishmen  then  living  the 
deepest  read  in  German  literature  and  ]»hil()S()i»hy,  he  was 
full  of  the  most  deliglitful  humor,  and  had  the  animal 
si»irits  of  a  boy.  His  hair  was  snow-white  in  those  days, 
though  he  was  not  more  than  forty-three  ;  but  his  dark 
eyes  under  his  gri/zled  brows  were  full  of  fire  and  fun. 
N(»  man  liad  greater  liorror  of  an  impostor,  or  of  the 
Hlighlest   attem2)t   at   the   assunn)tion   of   swagger;   but 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  203 

where  he  took  a  liking  he  attached  himself  firmly,  and 
was  the  sweetest,  the  most  delightful  comj^anion.  No 
one  ever  wore  his  learning  so  lightly,  or  conveyed  it  so 
unconsciously  and  unpretendingly  ;  no  man  so  thoroughly 
cquij)ped  with  vast  stores  of  erudition  ever  passed  through 
a  long  life  known  to  the  many  only  as  the  lightest  literary 
sharp-shooter. 

By  the  general  puhlic,  or,  I  may  say,  by  only  that  por- 
tion of  it  which  takes  an  interest  in  theatrical  matters, 
he  was  known  as  the  dramatic  critic  of  the  Times ;  but 
in  those  columns,  although  to  readers  between  the  lines 
there  was  constant  evidence  of  keen  analysis  and  subtle 
humor,  the  great  intellectual  powers  of  the  man  were 
never  to  be  recognized.  Why,  he  told  me  more  than 
once,  in  long  delightful  chats  in  tavern  parlors,  where  he 
would  sit  with  me  alone,  over  a  clay  "  church-warden " 
pij^e  and  a  pot  of  ale,  and  beguile  hour  after  hour  with  his 
fancies,  delivered  in  jerky  sentences,  in  a  rumbling  mono- 
tone. When  he  first  took  up  dramatic  criticism  for  the 
Times — his  first  employment  on  the  paper  had  been  in 
the  oflice  of  its  then  City  editor,  Mr.  Alsager,  a  relation 
of  his — he  wrote  unreservedly  his  opinion  not  merely  of 
the  play  under  notice,  but  of  the  actors.  One  of  these, 
being  somewhat  sharply  criticised,  appealed  in  a  strong- 
letter  to  the  editor,  which  Mr.  Delaue  showed  to  John 
Oxenford.  "I  have  no  doubt  you  w^'e  perfectly  right 
in  all  you  wrote,"  said  the  great  editor  to  the  embryo 
critic;  "but  that  is  not  the  question.  The  real  fact  is 
that  these  matters  are  of  far  too  small  importance  to  be- 
come subjects  for  discussion.  Whether  a  play  is  good  or 
bad,  whether  a  man  acts  well  or  ill,  is  of  very  little  con- 
sequence to  the  great  body  of  our  readers,  and  I  could 
not  think  of  letting  the  paper  become  the  field  for  argu- 
ment on  the  point.  So  in  future,  you  understand,  my 
good  fellow,  write  your  notices  so  as  much  as  possible  to 
avoid  these  sort  of  letters  being  addressed  to  the  oflice. 
You  understand  ?" 

Oxenford  understood  ;  and  in  that  interview  the  Times 
editor  voluntarily  threw  away  the  chance  of  being  sup- 
plied with  dramatic  criticism  as  keen  in  its  perspicacity 


204  FIFTY  TEARS  OF  LOXDON   LIFE. 

as  Hazlitt's,  as  delightful  in  its  geniality  as  Lamb's.  An 
acutely  conscientious  man  would,  under  the  circumstances, 
have  declined  the  task ;  but  Oxenford,  though  never 
pressed  by  poverty — his  father,  with  whom  he  lived  until 
within  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life,  was  a  well-to-do  mer- 
chant, with  a  house  in  John  Street,  Bedford  Row — knew 
the  value  of  money ;  his  position  as  theatrical  censor  of 
the  Times,  though  poorly  paid  (his  salary  was  only  five 
pounds  a  week),  gave  him  great  weight  with  managers, 
and  it  must  be  recollected  he  was  dramatist  as  well  as 
critic.  Finally,  he  was  glad  to  be  relieved  from  the  re- 
sponsibility and  the  hard  work  which  thoughtful  criticism 
would  have  entailed  ;  glad  to  be  spared  the  necessity  of 
wounding  the  feelings  of  any  of  those  with  whom  he 
lived  on  intimate  terms  ;  glad  to  be  spared  time  and  brain- 
power for  other  and  more  remunerative  work.  Thence- 
forward his  Times  notices,  written  on  the  principle  of 
being  pleasant  all  round,  were  amusing  essays,  in  which 
the  learning  of  the  writer  was  sometimes  apparent,  and 
v.here,  to  the  initiated,  a  delightful  humor  was  always 
cropping  up ;  but  they  were  not  criticisms  sucli  as  Oxen- 
ford  could  have  written  had  he  been  permitted,  or  such 
as  he  frequently  orally  delivered  to  two  or  three  appre- 
ciative friends. 

The  outcome  of  John  Oxenford's  large  store  of  reading 
is  to  be  found  in  cyclopnedias  and  reviews,  in  his  render- 
ing of  Eekermann's  "Conversations  with  Goethe,"  in  his 
translation  of  Friedrich  Jacob's  "  Hellas,"  his  work  for 
IJohn's  Standard  Library,  his  articles  on  Moli^rc  and 
other  l)iographical  i)a])ers  in  Knight's  Penmj  Ci/clojxcdia 
and  the  Westminster  Jieview.  The  charm  of  his  fancy 
illumines  scores  of  songs,  original  and  translated  ;  the 
delicate  flavor  of  his  humor  still  preserves  from  decay 
a  dozen  comediettas  and  farces,  one  of  which,  "Twice 
Killed,"  after  being  translated  into  French  as  an  operetta, 
under  the  title  "  Honsoir,  Sigiior  I'antalon,"  was  retrans- 
hitcd,  and  made  its  ajipearance  in  o})eratic  garb  on  the 
English  stage. 

'*  And  be  sure  you  get  Sala  and  the  Broughs,"  were  Al- 
bert Smith's  last  words  as  he  followed  me  to  the  door. 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  206 

Mr.  George  Augustus  Sala,  who  has  from  time  to  time 
been  my  honored  comrade  and  colleague  tlirougli  the 
whole  of  my  literary  career,  is  happily  alive  and  well, 
having  obtained  the  universal  recognition  of  his  abilities, 
having  reached  the  topmost  rung  of  the  ladder  of  journal- 
ism, having,  in  fine,  achieved  the  success  which  we,  his 
youthful  fellow-laborers,  always  predicted  for  him.  His 
appearance  in  the  narrative  of  these  desultory  reminis- 
cences will  be  frequent,  as  we  have  had  so  many  enter- 
prises in  common  ;  but  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing 
I  had  only  seen  him  once,  at  the  Fielding  Club,  whither 
he  had  been  brought  from  Rule's  oyster-shop,  where  he 
was  sup})ing,  to  be  presented  to  the  Duke  of  Sutherland, 
then  Marquis  of  Stafford,  and  some  of  his  friends,  who 
were  loud  in  praise  of  an  American  story,  "  Colonel 
Quagg's  Conversion,"  which  had  just  appeared  in  House- 
hold Words.  Wlio  could  have  written  it  ?  was  the  ques- 
tion ;  which  was  speedily  solved  by  Albert  Smith,  who 
declared  he  had  just  left  the  author,  and  went  away, 
returning  in  triumph  with  a  slim,  modest  young  fellow 
about  six-and-twenty  years  of  age.  It  would  be  imperti- 
nence in  me  to  speak  of  Mr.  Sala's  life-work,  lying  imme- 
diately before  the  world  as  most  of  it  is  ;  but  I  may  be, 
perhaps,  permitted  to  say  that  in  the  volumes  of  House- 
hold Words  from  '53  to  '56  are  to  be  found  essays  which 
not  merely  the  author  of  "Paris  Herself  Again"  and 
"America  Revisited"  has  never  surjjassed,  but  which 
Goldsmith  or  Lamb  might  have  been  proud  to  father. 
Like  Thackeray,  Mr,  Sala  has  "long  since  lost  his  way  to 
Bohemia,"  though  in  my  time  at  least  that  picturpsque 
country  has  never  had  so  famous  a  denizen,  unless  it  -were 
the  younger  of  the  once  famous  Brothers  Brough,  Robert 
Barnabas  Brough, 

"  Bill"  and  "  Bob  "  to  their  friends,  in  the  "land  where 
men  call  each  other  by  their  Christian  names,"  or  "  clean 
Brough  and  clever  Brough,"  the  sarcastic  but  well-fitting 
distinction  drawn  between  them  by  a  cynical  acquaint- 
ance ;  for  William  the  methodical  was  neat  and  whole- 
some, with  fresh  complexion  and  trim  beard  and  decent 
clothes,  and  Robert  the  brilliant  was  sallow  and  sickly. 


206  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

poor  fellow,  and  wholly  careless  of  his  personal  appear- 
ance— the  Brothers  Brough,  in  fine,  were  the  sons  of  a 
man  engaged  in  commerce,  of  whom  they  always  spoke 
with  much  affection,  and  who  gave  them  a  jjlain  English 
education.  On  this  somewhat  slender  foundation  both  of 
them,  in  later  life,  raised  a  fair  superstructure  of  learning. 
Both  acquired  French,  and  Bob  had  added  a  certain 
amount  of  German  and  Si^anish  to  his  store.  All  this  to 
his  credit ;  for  while  he  was  a  scholar,  he  was  a  producer  ; 
while  he  was  grinding  away  at  his  Ollendorff,  he  was 
thinking  out  his  article,  or  planning  his  piece,  or  racking 
his  weary  brain  for  jokes  for  his  forthcoming  burlesque. 

The  gentlemen  who  just  about  this  time  were  estab- 
lishing a  new  school  of  critical  literature  were  constantly 
either  savagely  ferocious  or  bitterly  sarcastic  with  profes- 
sional literary  men — persons,  that  is  to  say,  who  lived  by 
the  product  of  their  pens,  who  in  most  cases  had  not  had 
the  advantage  of  that  University  education  in  which  their 
detractors  gloried,  and  which  enabled  them  to  turn  the 
Ode  to  Thaliarchus  into  halting  English  verse,  or  to  im- 
bue with  a  few  classical  allusions  their  fierce  political  es- 
say or  fiippant  critical  review.  And  save  that  he  Avas  en- 
dowed with  more  and  finer  brains  than  the  average  run 
of  humanity,  Robert  Brough  was  the  exact  type  of  the 
class  thus  bitterly  reviled.  Spurning  the  life  of  commer- 
cial drudgery  to  which  he  was  originally  destined,  he 
commenced  on  his  own  account  at  a  very  early  age,  and 
awuke  the  echoes  of  his  dull,  prosaic  native  town  with 
the  cracking  of  his  witty  whip. 

The  Liverpool  Lion  was  i:  new  feature  in  the  annals  of 
the  Mersey's  i)ride.  The  merchant-])rinccs,  the  brokers, 
tlie  8hii)ping-agents,  the  great  outfitters,  and  the  rest  of 
them  had  gone  tlirougli  life  without  much  conception  of 
fun.  They  looked  through  the  pages  of  Punch,  i)erhaps, 
while  digesting  their  heavy  mid-day  meal,  and  smiled  at 
I.eecli'H  glorious  cartoons,  wliile  understanding  little  about 
tliem.  But  liere  was  a  revelation  of  wild  humor  brought 
into  their  very  midst ;  here  were  caricatures  which  every 
one  recognized,  allusions  which  all  understood.  Leecli's 
portrait  of  Lord  l^almerston,  whom  they  had  never  seen, 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  207 

was  not  to  be  compared  to  the  Lion''s  likeness  of  the 
Recorder  ;  and  no  joke  in  ancient  or  modern  times  could 
compete  with  the  manner  in  which  the  Chairman  of  the 
Brokers'  Association  was  "taken  off"  in  that  song  to  the 
tune  of  the  "  King  of  the  Cannibal  Islands."  Those  who 
wish  to  inform  themselves  of  the  manner  of  Robert 
Brough's  early  life-work  should  read  his  novel,  "  Marston 
Lynch,"  of  which  the  author  is  the  hero.  I  say  early  life- 
work  ;  but  it  was  all,  in  fact,  early  enough,  for  he  was  but 
five  or  six  and  thirty  when  he  died.  But  in  the  Liver- 
jyool  Lion  is  to  be  seen  the  germ  of  most  of  what  distin- 
guished his  later  writings — the  bright  wit,  the  strange, 
quaint  fancy,  the  readiness  to  seize  upon  topics  of  the 
hour  and  present  them  in  the  quaintest  garb  ;  the  exqui- 
site pathos  was  not  there,  nor  the  bitter  savagery,  though 
gleams  of  this  last  were  not  wanting. 

I  have  often  wondered  what  gave  Robert  Brough  that 
deep,  vindictive  hatred  of  wealth  and  rank  and  respecta- 
bility which  permeated  his  life,  and  which  so  surprised 
me,  who  had  been  bred  up  in  a  mild  conservatism.  It 
was  probably  innate  ;  it  was  certainly  ingrained.  It  was 
largely  increased  by  poverty,  by  ill-health,  by  an  ill-regu- 
lated life,  by  an  ever-present  conviction  that  there  lay  in 
him  power  to  produce  work  of  very  superior  quality  to 
that  ah'eady  published — power  which  was  nullified  by  his 
own  weakness  of  will.  His  was  the  poetic  temperament — 
sensitive,  nervous,  irritable  ;  his,  too,  the  craving  after  ig- 
noble sources  of  alleviation  in  times  of  mental  depression, 
and  the  impossibility  of  resisting  temptation,  come  in  what 
form  it  might.* 

He  was  a  Radical,  a  Republican  even,  but  something — 

*  On  his  twenty-niuth  birthday  he  wrote  me  a  letter,  commencing, 

"  I'm  twenty-nine !  I'm  twenty-nine ! 
I've  dranli  too  much  of  beer  and  wine ; 
I've  had  too  much  of  love  and  strife ; 
I've  given  a  kiss  to  Johnson's  wife,' 
And  sent  a  lying  note  to  mine — 
I'm  twenty-nine !  I'm  twenty-nine  !" 

*  Strictly  true,  but  the  name  is  not  Johnson.— R.  B.  B: 


208  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

partly  his  gentle  nature,  and  doubtless  greatly  his  won- 
derfully keen  perception  of  the  ludicrous — kept  him  from 
emulating  the  literary  achievements  of  the  political  con- 
tributors to  the  cheap  Sunday  press.  His  was  not  the 
coarse  many  -  syllabled  fustian  of  a  "  Publicola "  or  a 
"Gracchus,"  produced  according  to  the  laws  of  demand 
and  supply,  and  paid  for  by  a  weekly  wage.  Robert 
Brough's  was  the  real,  fierce  hatred  welling  up  from  an 
imbittered  soul,  and  finding  its  vent  in  verse.  Here  is 
the  Diot  de  Venigme : 

"  There  is  a  word  in  the  English  tongue, 

Where  I'd  rather  it  were  not ; 
For  shams  and  Hes  from  it  have  sprung, 

And  heart-burns  fierce  and  hot. 
'Tis  a  tawdrj-  cloak  for  a  dirty  soul : 

'Tis  a  sanctuary  base, 
Where  the  fool  and  the  knave  themselves  may  save 

From  justice  and  disgrace ; 
'Tis  a  curse  to  the  land,  deny  it  who  can, 
That  self-same  boast,  '  I'm  a  gentleman.'  " 

That  is  the  opening  of  a  poem  contained  in  a  little  thin 
volume  called  *'  Songs  of  the  Governing  Classes,"  by  Rob- 
ert Brough,  published  in  1855,  the  year  of  which  I  am 
writing,  by  Vizetelly.  It  had  scarcely  any  sale,  and  has 
been  unprocurable  for  many  years.  From  the  freedom 
of  its  speech,  the  vigor  of  its  thought,  and  the  polish  of 
its  woi-kmanship,  it  Avas  a  very  remarkable  production  ; 
but  neither  its  sentiments  nor  its  statements  would  bear 
analysis,  and  its  teachings  were  dangerous  and  uncalled 
for.     It  goes  on : 

"  You  may  leave  your  wife,  with  her  children  six, 

In  a  ditch  to  starve  and  pine. 
And  another  man's  take,  in  a  palace  rich, 

Willi  jowcl.s  and  gold  to  shine; 
You  may  flog  your  iiorse  or  your  dog  to  death ; 

You  may  shoot,  in  a  fit  of  rage, 
A  helpless  groom,  and  an  ea.sy  doom 

You'll  meet  from  the  jury  sage : 
'There's  Iteen  provocation — deny  it  who  can? 
For  wc  sec  at  a  glance  he's  n  gentleman !' " 


EARLY  EDITORSUIPS.  209 

111  his  preface  he  says  that,  being  only  known  as  "  a  pro- 
fane jester  and  a  satirist "  (as  Ruskin  said  of  Salvator 
Rosa),  tlie  pnblic  may  refuse  to  take  him  au  serieux;  he 
admits  that  he  has  certainly  made  jokes  for  a  livelihood, 
just  as  he  should  have  made  boots,  if  brought  up  to  the 
business,  and  seeing  no  harm  or  disgrace  in  either  calling. 
But  he  does  not  see  that  he  is  thereby  disqualified  from 
giving  serious  utterance  to  his  feelings  on  vital  ques- 
tions as  well  as  his  neighboi's,  "The  feeling,  of  which 
the  following  ballads  are  the  faint  echo  and  imperfect 
expression,  is  a  deeply-rooted  belief  that  to  the  institution 
of  aristocracy  in  this  country  (not  merely  to  its  undue 
preponderance,  but  to  its  absolute  existence)  is  mainly 
attributable  all  the  jDolitical  injustice,  and  more  especially 
the  grovelling  moral  debasement,  we  have  to  deplore." 
Limned  by  such  an  artist,  it  can  be  readily  imagined  that 
the  "  Portraits  "  of  the  aristocracy,  with  which  the  vol- 
ume commenced,  were  not  too  flattering.  The  first, 
*'  The  Marquis  de  Carabas,"  a  fancy  one,  is  thus  sketched : 


"  Look  at  his  skin — at  fourscore  years 
How  fresh  it  gleams,  and  fair ! 
He  never  tasted  ill-dressed  food, 
Or  breathed  in  tainted  air. 
The  noble  blood  flows  through  his  veins 
Still,  with  a  healthful  pink. 
His  brow  scarce  wrinkled !     Brows  keep  so 
That  have  not  got  to  think. 

Chapcau  bas  ! 

Chapeau  bas ! 
Gloire  au  Marquis  de  Carabas !" 


And  again : 


"  They've  got  him  in — he's  gone  to  vote 
Your  rights  and  nuue  away : 
Perchance  our  lives,  should  men  be  scarce, 
To  fight  his  cause  for  pay. 
We  are  his  slaves  !  he  owns  our  lands, 
Our  woods,  our  seas,  our  skies : 
He'd  have  us  shot  like  vicious  dogs, 
Should  we  in  murmuring  rise ! 
Chapeau  bas !"  etc. 


210  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

His  elder  brother,  William,  was  very  differently  consti- 
tuted. He  had  been,  early  in  life,  apprenticed  to  a  print- 
er, and  there  was  always  about  him  a  business-like  man- 
ner, and  an  appreciation  of  the  punctuality  and  good  faith 
necessary  for  business  relations.  Among  his  Bohemian 
friends  he  was  remarkable  for  his  neat  and  dapper  ap- 
pearance. Bob  once  declared  him  to  be  the  "  sort  of  man 
they  would  put  on  a  jury;"  and  while  not  stinting  him- 
self in  conviviality,  he  was  probably  more  mindful  of  the 
morrow  and  its  requirements  than  most  of  his  comrades. 
These  qualifications,  and,  above  all,  his  practical  knowl- 
edge of  printing,  power  of  roughly  estimating  what  so 
much  "  copy  "  would  "  make  "  when  set  up  in  type,  made 
him  very  useful  to  a  neophyte  like  myself,  and  I  speedily 
established  him  as  my  sub-editor. 

The  writers  named  constituted,  I  think,  the  literary 
staff,  though  we  had  occasional  assistance  from  Albert 
Smith,  Sutherland  Edwards  (now  well  known  as  critic, 
correspondent,  and  valuable  authority  on  musical  mat- 
ters), and  John  V.  Bridgeman.  There  always  has  been, 
and  there  certainly  Avas  in  those  early  days,  a  difficulty 
in  finding  suitable  artists  for  a  comic  publication.  As  my 
stock  contributors,  I  was  lucky  in  obtaining  the  services 
of  Charles  H.  Bennett,  then  in  the  commencement  of  his 
career,  whose  undeniable  talent  was  afterwards  recognized 
by  his  engagement  on  Punch;  and  William  McConnell, 
a  young  man  who  was  just  making  his  mark  in  illustrat- 
ing the  shilling  books  then  coming  into  vogue.  Later  on 
he  obtained  great  ])raise  for  his  clever  outline  illustra- 
tions of  Mr.  Sala's  "  Twice  Round  tlie  CMock."  Mr.  New- 
man and  Mr.  Hcnning  occasionally  sent  sketches,  and  sub- 
sequently Sala  and  Jlubcrt  Brough  added  to  the  piquan- 
cy of  certain  of  their  articles  by  rough  but  very  humor- 
ous wood-drawings. 

Tlie  first  number  of  the  Comic  Times  was  dated  Satur- 
day, August  11,  1S.55,  and  was,  like  all  first  numbers,  but 
a  poor  sample  of  what  the  jx'riodical  afterwards  became. 
I  do  not  recognize  Robert  Jirongli's  hand  in  it,  from  first 
to  last ;  but  Sala  coninicnced  a  series  of  j)aj)crs  calli'd 
"The  Hermit  in  the  Box:  being  the  E.\])erieuces  of  Silas 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  211 

Bulgrummer,  Stage  Doorkeeper,"  which  ran  through  sev- 
eral numbers,  and  are  full  of  close  observation  and  quaint 
fancy.  There  was  some  mild  punning  by  William  Brough, 
some  recondite  humor  of  John  Oxenford's,  some  jDoetry  by 
Hale,  and  a  clever  opening  address  in  delightful  rhyme  by 
Frank  Scudamore.  In  the  second  number  Robert  Brough 
commenced  *'  The  Barlow  Papers,"  which  were  the  success 
of  the  publication.  "  Billy  Barlow,"  the  hero  of  a  comic 
song  then  in  the  height  of  its  popularity,  became  a  con- 
tributor in  Brough's  person,  and  wrote  on  every  kind  of 
current  topic,  in  every  kind  of  verse,  but  never  proceeding 
for  long  without  some  harking  back  to  the  refrain  of  the 
original  comic  song.  Here  Brough's  sardonic  humor  had 
full  play.  Being  Avholly  unfettered  by  his  subject  or  its 
treatment,  he  could  give  it  those  little  "tavern  touches" 
in  which  his  soul  delighted;  and  the  result  was  that  "  Will- 
iam Barlow,"  whose  adventures  were  speedily  illustrated 
by  their  author,  became  a  popular  favorite. 

This  my  first  bantling  had  a  short  but  merry  career  of 
three  months  ;  merry,  that  is  to  say,  for  its  editor  and  con- 
tributors, though  I  doubt  if  Mr.  Ingram  saw  much  fun  in 
his  venture.  He  never  grumbled,  and  his  checks  were 
furnished  with  praiseworthy  regularity  ;  but  he  could  not 
but  have  been  dissatisfied  with  the  result  of  his  experi- 
ment. We  all  worked  very  hard,  but  the  cii'culation, 
though  it  gradually  rose,  never  came  to  anything  like  pay- 
ing point.  Its  business  management  was  bad  ;  it  was 
never  properly  advertised  or  quoted ;  it  was  hated  at  the 
Illustrated  News  oflSce  as  an  interloper ;  and  it  was  sys- 
tematically decried  and  cold-shouldered  by  Mark  Lemon, 
who,  as  I  have  said,  was  Mr.  Ingram's  private  secretary, 
and  who,  having  with  unctuous  adroitness  healed  the 
breach  between  his  master  and  his  other  employers, 
Messrs.  Bradbury  &  Evans,  determined  that  our  poor  lit- 
tle effort  should  be  stamped  out  at  once. 

The  method  which  he  adopted  for  accomplishing  his  pur- 
pose was  so  characteristic  and  so  comic  that  even  at  this  dis- 
tance of  time,  I  am  amused  on  recalling  it.  It  was  late 
in  November,  and  we  had  just  published  a  Comic  Times 
Almanack  for  the  coming  year,  on  which  I  prided  myself 


212  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

considerably.  Every  one  had  done  his  best,  and  the  re- 
sult was  really  funny  and  amusing.  So  the  public  seemed 
to  think,  for  they  bought  the  Almanack  with  an  avidity 
which  they  had  never  shown  for  the  ordinary  issue.  The 
worthy  cashier,  Mr.  Plunimer,  who  audited  my  accounts, 
and  whose  manner  towards  me  hitherto  would  have  been 
severe  in  his  loyalty  to  Mr.  Ingram,  had  it  not  been  soft- 
ened by  a  little  feeling  of  pity  and  personal  regard  for 
myself,  at  last  smiled  and  congratulated  me.  It  was  very 
good  indeed,  he  said;  and  with  that  spirit  of  partisanship 
which  is  always  to  be  found  in  all  persons  however  re- 
motely connected  with  the  inside  or  outside  of  literary 
production,  he  added,  chuckling,  "And  they  won't  like  it 
at  Whitefriars."  In  this  remark  Mr.  Plummer  showed 
his  business  aptitude  :  by  "  Whitefriars "  in  those  days 
we  used  to  indicate  the  Punch  office,  which  was  there 
situate ;  and  by  the  ^^ Punch  people  " — Messrs.  Bradbury 
&  Evans  ("  B.  &  E."),  its  proprietors,  Mark  Lemon,  its 
editor,  and  the  staff  in  general  —  our  Almanack  was 
thought  so  dangerously  good  that  it  was  felt  the  time 
had  arrived  when  we  must  be  put  an  end  to. 

All  this  I  learned  long  afterwards  from  one  of  the 
band,  but  at  tliat  moment  I  had  no  idea  save  that  of 
utilizing  the  temporary  success  we  had  gained.  I  would 
])ersuade  Mr.  Ingram  into  advertising  the  paper;  I  would 
get  the  business  management  put  on  a  better  system  ;  I 
would  do  this  and  that  and  the  other  ;  and  no  liappier 
or  more  many  -  planned  Alnaschar  ever  walked  down  the 
Strand  and  into  Milford  House,  where  I  found  Mr.  In- 
gram, with  the  baleful  shadow  of  the  corpulent  Lemon 
looming  large  behind  him.  Tlie  day  was  Saturday,  and 
tliough  at  that  time  there  was  no  regular  half-holiday,  it 
was  customary  to  "knock  off  work"  a  little  earlier  (ban 
usual.  Mr.  Ingram,  in  the  large  Huffy  hat  and  the  large- 
l).'itterned  silk  cache-nez  so  familiar  to  his  friends,  was 
on  the  point  of  starting  off  for  Brighton,  so  he  hurriedly 
said ;  but  lie  wanted  to  see  me  "  very  partiek'lar,  very  pai*- 
tick'iar  indeed  ;"  (u>ul(l  I  not  breakfast  with  him  at  the 
New  Ship  Inn  at  Brighton  the  next  morning? 

I  saw   my   way  to  a  little  outing,  combining  business 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  213 

with  pleasure,  and  agreed  to  be  with  him  at  10  a.m.  Ac- 
cordingly that  evening  my  wife  and  I  went  down  to 
Brighton  to  some  cheap  lodgings  in  Camelford  Street 
whicli  we  were  in  the  habit  of  frequenting.  I  told  her 
she  would  have  to  breakfast  alone,  as  I  was  engaged  to 
Mr.  Ingram;  and  on  Sunday  morning,  after  a  lovely  swim 
at  Brill's  Baths,  I  presented  myself  at  the  New  Ship, 

Mr.  Ingram's  room  was  on  the  first  floor,  I  was  told.  I 
went  up,  knocked,  and  had  the  door  promptly  opened  to 
me  by  Mark  Lemon  !  He  smiled  expansively,  rubbed  his 
own  hands,  and  seized  mine.  Over  his  broad  shoulders  I 
could  see  the  room,  the  table  laid  for  an  excellent  meal, 
Ingram  with  "  shining  morning  face  "  and  in  his  Sunday 
clothes,  and  two  ladies  in  whom  I  recognized  Mrs.  Ingram 
and  Mrs.  Lemon.  Mark  tried  to  bar  the  entrance  with 
his  portly  person,  but  I  pushed  past  him  :  I  shook  hands 
with  Ingram,  I  bowed  to  the  ladies ;  then  Lemon  caught 
me  again,  he  seized  my  hand,  he  shook  it,  he  shook  it  as 
we  progressed  all  round  tlie  room  ;  he  never  left  off  shak- 
ing it,  and  gently  propelling  me,  until  he  had  shaken  me 
out  on  to  the  landing  and'shut  the  door  between  us. 

I  saw  the  hopeless  impossibility  of  seeking  an  interview 
with  my  proprietor  under  such  circumstances,  and  turned 
ruefully  back  to  my  little  lodgings  in  search  of  breakfast. 
It  seems  scarcely  credible  that  I  can  have  been  routed 
after  such  a  fashion,  but  this  is  an  exact  statement  of  the 
facts  as  they  occurred.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Lem- 
on was  an  old  stager,  with  considerable  influence  over  Mr. 
Ingram,  and  that  I  was  a  very  young  man,  with  no  influ- 
ence at  all,  and  the  chances  of  the  contest  being  so  une- 
qual I  thought  justified  me  in  thus  readily  accepting  my 
defeat.* 

At  all  events,  defeated  I  was,  and  I  was  soon  made  to 
learn  it.  On  the  Tuesday  morning  I  received  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Plummer,  very  business-like  but  not  uncourte- 


*  I  have  little  doubt  now,  on  thinking  over  tlic  matter,  tliat  Mr.  Ingram 
had  fully  made  up  his  mind  to  discontinue  the  issue  of  the  paper,  and  that 
Lemon's  quaint  strategy  merely  relieved  his  patron  of  the  trouble  of  break- 
ing the  news  to  me. 


214  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ous,  informing  me  that  Mr.  Ingram  had  "  had  enough " 
of  the  Comic  Times,  and  desiring  me  to  bring  the  exist- 
ence of  that  periodical  to  a  close  as  speedily  as  possible. 
It  did  not  require  much  winding  up,  poor  little  leaflet ! 
Another  number — there  were  only  sixteen  in  all — finished 
it  up,  and  the  first  of  my  literary  progeny  died  with 
scarcely  a  struggle. 

But  though  the  publication  had  come  to  an  untimely 
end,  its  creators  and  contributors  remained,  full  of  life 
and  hope.  During  the  four  months  in  which  we  had 
been  thrown  together  a  great  feeling  of  natural  liking 
had  sprung  up  among  us  ;  the  weekly  symposia,  held  in 
the  tavern  parlor  w^here  the  contents  of  the  coming  num- 
ber had  been  arranged,  had  proved  most  delightful  re- 
unions ;  and  there  was  a  universal  feeling  of  regret  that 
they  should  be  discontinued.  Of  course  there  was  no 
actual  reason  for  the  cessation ;  for  though  the  literary 
preparation  of  the  Comic  Times  involved  delicious  sup- 
pers and  hot  grogs  and  fragrant  pipes,  the  suppers,  grogs, 
and  pipes  could  all  have  been  discussed  without  any  ex- 
cuse of  business.  It  was  universally  felt,  however,  that 
that  would  not  do  ;  we  must  find  some  one,  some  "  capi- 
talist " — that  is  the  word  always  used  in  connection  with 
such  schemes — who  would  resuscitate  the  glories  of  the 
Comic  Times,  or  start  some  new  organ  with  editor  and 
staff  ready  to  his  hand. 

The  search  for  this  much-desired  being  was  delegated 
to  practical  William  Brough,  but  in  it  he  failer""  dismally, 
Tlie  success  of  Punch — and  in  those  days  "B.  &  E.'s" 
publication  had  not  merely  a  very  large  circulation,  but 
considerable  social  influence — had  called  into  existence  a 
host  of  intended  rivals,  which,  after  enjoying  an  ephem- 
eral popularity — for  there  was  good  writing  in  most  of 
them  :  contributions  from  James  Ilannay  and  Watts  Phil- 
lips (a  man  equally  facili'  witli  i»en  or  })encil),  Sutherland 
Edwards,  and  Augustus  ISfayhew  among  others — had  died 
out.  Puck,  the  Puppet  -  iShoin,  Pastjnin,  JDiof/encs,  and 
many  otliers  had  been  started  on  the  money  provided  by 
"cai)ilalists"  of  all  kinds,  wholly  unconnected  with  jour- 
nalism very  often,  and  after  a  spurt  and  a  fizzle  had  ex- 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  215 

pired  of  inanition.  The  thing  was  played  out  for  a  time 
— how  often  has  it  been  revived  since  ! — and  not  merely 
was  no  capitalist  forthcoming,  but  William  Brough  could 
find  no  publisher,  printer,  or  pa2:)er  -  maker  to  back  our 
venture,  and  wait  for  his  money  until  we  succeeded. 

But  we  determined  that  our  intention  should  not  be 
frustrated,  and  after  long  discussion  we  decided  upon 
forming  ourselves  into  a  kind  of  joint-stock  company — it 
was  long  before  the  *'  limited  "  days — and  bringing  out  a 
magazine.  The  price  was  to  be  a  shilling,  its  name  The 
Train ;  writers  and  artists  were  to  contribute  gratis,  ex- 
pecting nothing  until  the  success  was  established  ;  a  sub- 
scription of  £10  each  (£120  in  all)  constituted  our  capital. 
I  M'as  chosen  editor,  principally  because  my  ways  of  life 
were  less  erratic  than  those  of  most  of  my  friends,  and 
ray  Post-office  occupation  would  give  me  a  certain  amount 
of  stability  in  the  eyes  of  those  business  people  with  whom 
we  should  have  to  deal.  The  Train-band  had  all  the  com- 
ponent elements  of  the  staff  of  the  Comic  Times,  with  the 
addition  of  Frank  Smedley,  who  joined  us  at  once  at  my 
suggestion.  All  the  articles  were  to  be  signed  by  the 
Avriters.  We  agreed  unanimously  that  anonymity  was 
the  bane  of  literature,  and  that,  if  we  made  no  money  by 
our  venture,  at  least  we  would  advertise  our  names.  So, 
on  the  1st  January,  1856,  heralded  by  very  few  adver- 
tisements, The  Train,  in  a  green  cover,  with  a  pretty  vign- 
ette of  the  express  emerging  from  a  tunnel,  with  the 
motto  Virs2s  acquirit  eundo,  made  its  first  appearance. 

Not  exactly  in  the  form  originally  intended.  I  had 
hoped  that  the  leading  serial  story — we  were  to  have  two 
— would  have  been  written  by  Sala.  Everything  was  ar- 
ranged to  that  effect;  our  erratic  friend  had  thought  over 
his  plot,  had  settled  on  his  title,  "  Fripanelli's  Daughter," 
and  had  given  McConuell  the  subject  for  an  illustration. 
Time  passed  without  my  receiving  any  of  the  MS.,  and  I 
was  getting  anxious.  My  own  business  habits  were  so 
methodical  that  I  had  often  been  surprised  at  the  total 
failure  of  most  of  my  comrades  to  comprehend  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  punctuality  ;  but  hitherto  this  shortcom- 
ing had  only  affected  publishers,  the  natural  enemies  of 


216  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

our  race;  now  it  would  tell,  aad  tell  seriously,  against  the 
welfare  of  our  little  republic  just  starting  into  existence. 

We  were  already  in  December,  and  I  was  getting  des- 
perate. Not  merely  had  I  heard  notliing  of  Sala,  but  no 
one  had  seen  him  for  a  week  ;  it  was  his  whim  to  let  no 
one  know  where  he  lived,  and  we  had  often  laughed  over 
the  peculiarity.  But  now  it  was  no  laughing  matter. 
There  were  certain  haunts  at  which,  at  certain  hours,  he 
could  generally  be  found,  but  lately  he  had  deserted 
them.  My  colleagues  were  as  anxious  as  myself.  We 
held  a  conclave;  we  drew  up  an  advertisement  couched  in 
mysterious  terms,  intelligible  only  to  the  initiated,  and  in- 
serted it  in  the  Times.  It  commenced,  I  recollect,  "  Bo- 
hemian, M'here  art  thou  ?"  and  I  saw  it  the  other  day,  to 
my  infinite  amusement,  rc})roduced  in  a  volume  compiled 
from  the  "agony  column."  It  elicited  no  reply,  and  we 
were  in  despair.  The  magazine  could  not  appear  without 
some  serial  story  Avhich  would  evoke  public  interest  and 
sympathy,  and  the  one  I  had  by  me,  "  ]Mr.  Watkins's  Ap- 
prentice," by  William  Brough,  had  no  such  claim. 

Then  Robert  Brough  threw  himself  into  the  breach. 
He  had  had  no  experience  of  tale-Avriting,  but  he  would 
tell  the  story  of  his  own  life  —  a  not  uneventful  one  so 
far;  and  we  were  all  delighted  at  the  notion,  knowing  the 
grace  and  charm  with  which  he  would  invest  it.  He  set 
to  work  with  a  will,  and  our  new  magazine  opened  with 
two  chapters  of  "Marston  Lynch:  his  Life  and  Times; 
his  Friends  and  Enemies;  his  Victories  and  Defeats;  his 
Kicks  and  Halfpence."  It  was  capitally  illustrated  by 
McCoimell,  and  I  utilized  the  drawing  which  that  clever 
artist  had  made  for  "  Fripauelli's  Daughter  "  as  a  tail-piece 
at  the  end  of  the  second  chapter  of  "Marston  Lynch," 
with  which  it  had  notliing  whatever  to  do. 

The  numl)cr  was  good  throughout.  Sala  was  not  un- 
represented; before  liis  mysterious  disappearance  he  had 
left  with  me  a  paj)er  called  "  The  Parisian  Nights'  Enter- 
tainments," an  admirable  Salaescjue  description  of  a  night 
among  the  booths  and  fu/ntf/itis  of  the  boulevards  on  the 
eve  of  the  Jour  do  I'An.  Ilobi'rt  Brougli  had  a  really 
lovely  )»oem,  and  Frank  fSinedley  some  j)retty  verse  ;  Hale 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  217 

had  some  lines,  commencing,  "  Too  often  I've  pledged  in 
October's  brown  di-aught,"  reading  which  aloud,  Brough 
said,  "  Billy  is  nothing  if  not  true  ;"  Edward  Draper,  a 
sound  article  on  John  Wilkes,  with  the  demagogue's  head 
beautifully  drawn  by  Charles  Bennett,  after  Hogarth's 
portrait ;  Bridgeman  and  I  each  contributed  a  social 
essay;  and  the  number  wound  up  with  a  dramatic  dia- 
logue, "  Nights  at  the  Round  Table,"  an  imitation  of 
Wilson's  "  Noctes  Ambrosianae,"  mention  of  which  leads 
me  to  a  digression. 

While  engaged  in  the  preparation  of  our  first  number 
we  heard  that,  simultaneously  with  our  own,  a  rival  peri- 
odical was  to  be  issued;  and  before  we  had  made  any  an- 
nouncement, appeared  the  prospectus  of  a  new  shilling 
magazine,  to  be  called  Tlie  Idler,  which  was  not  merely  to 
be  amusing  and  delightful,  of  course,  but  which  was  to 
lash  the  ignorant,  the  incompetent,  the  presumptuous,  and 
all  others  whom  the  promoters  of  the  new  organ  consid- 
ered as  requiring  correction  "  with  a  rod  pickled  in  classic 
brine."  If  there  had  been  any  doubt  as  to  the  leading 
spirit  in  the  opposition  camp,  the  prospectus,  and  notably 
the  phrase  just  quoted,  would  have  set  it  at  rest,  and 
pointed  to  James  Hannay,  a  young  man  of  great  talent, 
fair  education,  a  certain  power  of  sarcastic  invective,  a 
ponderous  but  fluent  speaker,  and  a  vehement  political 
partisan  ;  endowed,  moreover,  with  singular  powers  of 
fascination  over  certain  young  men.  One  of  these,  the 
bearer  of  a  name  distinguished  in  philanthropy,  himself 
the  nephew  of  an  eminent  prelate,  had  recently  succeeded 
to  an  inheritance,  and  determined  to  employ  a  portion  of 
it  in  furthering  the  cause  to  which  he  was  devoted  and  the 
man  whom  he  admired.  He  gathered  round  him  several 
very  clever  young  fellows,  some  fresh  from  the  University, 
among  them  Mr.  T.  E.  Kebbel,  Mr.  H.  W.  Sotheby,  Mr. 
Blanchard  Jerrold,  Mr.  J.  Cordy  Jcaffreson,  Mr,  Wiltshire 
Austin,  and  Mr,  E.  Forster  Blanchard,  The  editor,  in 
spirit  if  not  in  name,  was  James  Hannay  ;  and  under  these 
auspices,  and  in  a  yellow  cover,  The  Idler  burst  upon  the 
world. 

The  rivalry  between  the  two  newly -born  periodicals 

10 


218  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

was  of  course  intense.  We,  in  our  adversaries'  opinion, 
were  Radicals,  scoffers,  ribalds,  ignoramuses,  lacking  the 
blessings  of  a  University  education — mere  pressmen,  liv- 
ing by  our  wits,  and  without  many  of  them  to  live  on.  We 
held  the  opposition  to  be  bigoted  Tories,  self  -  sufficient 
prigs,  hammering  out  their  thin  coating  of  classics  to 
cover  their  otherwise  universal  ignorance;  and  we  ridi- 
culed their  mission  to  judge  and  castigate  society.  The 
animosity  ran  very  high  before  either  venture  was 
launched,  and  in  the  "Nights  at  the  Round  Table"  one 
of  the  contributors  was  made  to  ask,  "  Who  are  the  people 
on  The  Idler?''  This  was  the  reply:  "Haunay  &  Co., 
University  and  watei-,  with  a  dash  of — no,  not  gin,  but  a 
little  cheap  claret  in  it ;  fellows  who,  if  you  once  get  into 
their  pillory,  will  pelt  you  with  Greek  roots,  like  so  many 
cabbage-stumps."  It  was  smart,  and  it  called  forth  a  bit- 
ter reply.  Sala  and  Brough  were  deservedly  regarded  as 
the  leading  lights  of  IVie  Train.  In  the  second  number 
of  The  Idler  the  bit  of  dialogue  above  given  was  quoted, 
with  the  following  epigram  : 

"Easy  to  see  why  S.  and  B. 
Dislike  the  University ; 
Easy  to  guess  why  B.  and  S. 
Detest  cold  water  little  less : 

"  For  as  their  writings  prove  their  creed, 
That  men  who  write  should  never  read, 
Tiieir  faces  show  tliey  think  it  bosh 
Tliat  men  wlio  write  should  ever  wash  !" 

I  heard  nothing  of  Sala  until  I  received  a  letter  from 
him,  dated  "  2  Rue  Racine,  Paris,"  ten  days  after  the  ap- 
pearance of  our  first  number,  lie  had  been  very  ill,  he 
said,  "  utterly  incapable  of  work,"  and,  though  better, 
still  suffering  from  "an  incessant  horrible  pain  in  my 
head  that  nearly  drives  me  mad."  He  mentioned  hav- 
ing seen  Dickens,  who  was  then  living  over  the  carriage- 
factory  in  the  C'hamps-Elysues,  and  who  "  is  most  kind 
and  jolly,  and  T  think  will  do  anything  for  me."  Sala 
must  at  this  early  jjcriod  have  given  some  thought  to  the 
Hogarth  ])apers,  which  lie  did  not  write  for  years,  and 
must  even  then  have  talked  of  them   with  Thackeray, 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  219 

under  whose  editorship  they  were  eventually  published 
in  the  Cornhill;  for  he  says,  "He"  (Dickens)  "knows  all 
about  the  book  from  Thackeray,  but  not  its  title  ;  and  learn- 
ing that  from  me,  gave  me  two  books  about  Hogarth." 
I  may  here  say  that,  though  " Fripanelli's  Daughter" 
never  saw  the  light,  and  "  The  Countess  Nadiejda,"  an- 
other promised  serial  from  the  same  pen,  came  to  a  sud- 
den and  abortive  conclusion,  Mr.  Sala  did  some  admirable 
work  in  the  earlier  issues  of  The  I'rain.  An  article  on 
"  Robson,"  which  first  appeared  there,  has  been  frequent- 
ly quoted  as  an  extraordinary  example  of  original  and 
powerful  dramatic  criticism  ;  and  there  is  a  grim  horror 
in  "  The  Paper  on  the  Wall,"  a  description  of  the  fantas- 
tic appearance  of  inanimate  objects  to  a  sick  man's  dis- 
ordered fancy,  which  is  Hoffmannesque  in  its  weirdness. 

I  have  little  doubt  that  the  infant  Fripanelli  would 
have  been  born,  and  the  Russian  Countess  would  have 
flourished  in  our  pages,  but  for  the  fact  that  Mr.  Sala's 
visit  to  Paris  at  this  time,  and  his  friendly  intercourse 
with  Dickens,  led  the  way  to  the  first  momentous  event 
in  his  life — his  being  despatched  two  months  later  on  a 
Household  Wo^xls  mission  to  St.  Petersburg,  to  be  re- 
corded in  that  publication  as  "A  Journey  due  North." 
On  his  outward  journey  he  sent  me,  for  The  Train,  a  very 
clever  ballad,  "  Carmen  Stettinense — '  Caviar  and  Riides- 
heimer,' "  two  verses  of  which  I  extract : 

"  The  King  of  Prussia  drinks  champagne, 
Old  Person  drank  whatever  was  handy : 
Maginn  drank  gin,  Judge  Blackstone  port; 
And  many  famous  wits  drink  brandy. 
Stern  William  Romer  drinketh  beer, 
And  so  does  Tennyson  the  rhymer; 
But  I'll  renounce  all  liquors  for 
My  Caviar  and  Riidesheimer. 

«  «  *  »  « 

"  If  some  kind  heart  that  beats  for  me, 
This  troubled  liead  could  e'er  be  pressed  on ; 
If  in  the  awful  night,  this  hand 
Outstretched  a  form  I  loved  could  rest  on  ;* 

*  There  is  no  occasion,  now,  for  any  sympathy  with  this  wail.  Mr.  Sala 
has  been  for  many  years  happily  and  fortunately  married. 


220  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

If  wife,  or  child,  or  friend,  or  dog 
I  called  my  owti,  in  any  clime — a. 
This  lyre  I'd  tune  to  other  strains 
Than  Caviar  and  Riidesheimer." 

This  came  enclosed  in  a  most  amusing  letter,  telling 
me,  among  other  things,  of  his  travelling  adventures  : 

"  I  am  going  halves  with  a  Russian  in  a  carriage  and  post-horses,  the 
former  the  most  remarkable  cruelty-van  you  ever  saw,  which  we  are  to  sell 
again  when  we  get  to  the  Russian  frontier.  My  friend  the  Russian  speaks 
every  language  under  the  sun,  and  is  very  likely  a  spy ;  but  it  is  very  little 
he  can  get  out  of  me.  Cooker}-,  the  opera,  lords  and  ladies  are  the  staple 
subjects  of  conversation,  and  to  all  questions  I  find  the  reply,  that  '  J'ai 
des  affaires  k  St.  P6tersbourg,'  that  I  have  letters  of  introduction  to  the 
American  Minister,  and  that  Baron  Steiglitz  is  my  banker,  quite  satisfac- 
tory." 

The  reception  of  the  magazine  by  the  London  and  pro- 
vincial press  was  very  flattering,  and  in  the — at  that  time 
— powerful  Examiner,  which  usually  ignored  any  light 
and  flippant  publications,  the  great  John  Forster  was 
kind  enough  to  speak  very  encouragingly  of  our  efforts 
in  a  notice  which  commenced,  "  The  Train  starts  full  of 
very  pleasant  talkers."  These  remarks,  I  remember,  had 
great  weight  with  our  publishers,  Messrs.  Groombridge 
of  Paternoster  Row,  worthy  gentlemen,  whose  attention 
had  hitherto  been  devoted  to  the  production  of  a  very 
different  style  of  literature  —  works  on  science,  botany, 
and  zoology — and  who  were  always,  I  thought,  somewhat 
nervous  as  to  what  might  be  among  the  contents  of  The 
Train.  We  had  a  very  fair  sale,  and  the  lookout  for 
the  future  was  promising. 

In  the  second  number  Robert  Brough  commenced  a 
series  of  translations  of  "The  F>allads  and  Romantie 
Poems  of  Victor  Hugo,"  presenting  the  graceful  fancies 
of  the  original  in  an  English  garb  which  was  equally 
graceful  and  attractive.  Tlu'se  translations  were  con- 
tinued for  several  months.  In  numln-r  three  I  publislud 
a  poem  by  "Lewis  Carroll,"  under  Avliieh  pseudonym, 
then  first  adojMcd,  tht-  autlior  has  since  won  vast  popu 
larity  with  "  Alice  in  Wonderland "  and  similar  works. 
Many  pieces  originally  contributed  to  Tlie  Train  are  re- 


EARLY  EDITORSHIPS.  221 

produced  in  Mr.  "Carroll's"  later  books.  By  this  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  magazine  did  not  long  remain  a  close 
borough,  but  that  we  were  glad  to  avail  ourselves  of  suit- 
able extraneous  assistance,  whicli  was,  I  am  bound  to  say, 
very  freely  offered.  Rising  young  writers  liked  the  as- 
sociation, and  were  glad  to  contribute  to  our  pages, 
though  aware  that  no  payment  was  forthcoming,  while 
men  of  achieved  reputation,  like  my  old  friends  Palgrave 
Simpson  and  John  Oxenford,  occasionally  sent  me  alw^ays 
welcome  articles.  In  the  first  volume  I  find  a  little  poem, 
"  Tempora  Mutantur,"  by  Frederick  Locker,  the  first,  I  be- 
lieve, whicli  he  ever  published,  and  which  is  incorporated 
in  his  "  London  Lyrics."  Mr.  Hain  Friswell,  Dr.  Maurice 
Davies,  Mr.  Thomas  Archer,  and  Mr.  Albany  FonJblanque 
were  also  acceptable  recruits. 

With  the  commencement  of  our  third  volume,  a  year 
after  our  commencement,  we  had  a  valuable  accession  to 
our  staff  in  the  person  of  John  Hollingshead,  whose  ac- 
quaintance I  had  just  made,  and  with  whom  I  became 
very  intimate.  He  had  at  that  time  essayed  no  literary 
flight,  and  I  think  his  first  productions  are  printed  in  The 
Train.  They  were  marked  by  great  originality,  quaint 
humor,  and  strong  common-sense  ;  they  made  their  mark 
at  once.  Mr.  John  Hollingshead  then  adopted  literature 
as  a  profession,  and  continued  it  with  excellent  results, 
until  he  went  into  the  more  lucrative  calling  of  theatrical 
manager.  His  most  intimate  friend  at  that  time,  as  now, 
was  William  Moy  Thomas,  who  even  then  had  made  a 
name  as  a  sound  English  scholar,  clever  critic,  and  pun- 
gent writer.  At  Hollingshead's  suggestion,  Moy  Thomas 
sent  us  several  articles :  one,  a  scathing  criticism  of  Gris- 
wold's  "  Life  of  Poe,"  created  some  sensation  at  the  time, 
and  would  well  bear  reproduction. 

To  Hollingshead's  introduction,  too,  we  owed  the  con- 
tributions of  a  new  artist,  which  about  this  time  appeared 
in  our  pages.  I  will  not  name  the  gentleman,  for  I  believe 
he  lives  and  prospers,  and  has  doubtless  greatly  improved 
in  his  art.  What  it  was  in  those  early  days  may  be 
guessed  from  an  observation  of  Thackeray's.  The  maga- 
>:ine  was  sent  by  my  orders  to  the  Garrick  Club,  and  I 


222  TIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

used  to  be  very  proud  to  see  it  lying  among  its  elder 
brethren  on  the  table  of  the  little  reading-room  up-stairs. 
I  used  furtively  to  cut  its  leaves,  but  I  had  no  notion  that 
any  one  read  it,  until  one  day  Thackeray  surprised  me  by 
saying,  *'  You  have  a  new  artist  on  The  Train,  I  see,  my 
dear  Yates  !  I  have  been  looking  at  his  work,  and  I  have 
solved  a  problem.  I  find  there  is  a  man  alive  who  draws 
worse  than  myself !"  It  was  in  the  third  volume,  too, 
that  I  first  began  a  series  called  "Men  of  Mark,"  which 
in  style  and  treatment  was  really  the  forerunner  of  the 
"  Celebrities  at  Home,"  and  the  first  examples  of  which 
were  Dr.  Russell  and  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins. 

It  is  needless  to  say  much  more  about  the  fortunes  or 
misfortunes  of  The  Train.  The  spirit  of  camaraderie, 
the  desire  to  emancipate  ourselves  from  the  thraldom  of 
the  publisher  and  to  be  our  own  masters,  died  out  in  many 
of  us  when  we  found  that  we  had  miscalculated  our 
strength  or  the  public  taste,  and  that  calls  instead  of  divi- 
dends were  the  result  of  our  speculation.  It  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  men  who  lived  by  their  work  would, 
after  a  time,  give  that  work  gratis  while  they  could  get 
money  for  it.  Some  held  bravely  on  to  the  end;  but  there 
were  important  defaulters,  and  for  the  last  nine  or  ten 
months  I  had  no  contributions  from  the  original  artists, 
and  had  to  depend  on  any  drawings  I  could  beg,  so  that 
the  poor  magazine  declined  in  quality,  and  its  circulation, 
which  never  had  been  great,  became  very  small.  Finally, 
after  a  career  of  two  years  and  a  half,  77ie  Train  stopped 
running  altogether.  As  its  conductor  I  had  gained  valu- 
able editorial  experience.  But  I  had  paid  for  it.  For, 
during  its  tliirty  months'  existence,  besides  our  original 
joint-stock  funds,  which  were  speedily  exhausted,  it  had 
absorbed  over  nine  hundred  pounds,  some  of  which  had 
already  come  out  of  my  ])ocket,  but  for  the  major  })ortion 
of  which  I  was  still  responsible  at  the  time  of  its  wind- 
ing up. 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH   TUE  GARRICK  CLUB.      223 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF   THE     GARRICK     CLUB:     AND     MY     "DIFFICULTY" 
THEREWITH. 

1858. 

In  the  present  year  there  are,  according  to  the  omnis- 
cient Whitalcer's  Almanack,  seventy-two  clubs  in  London, 
exchisive  of  those  in  the  City,  and  of  such  establishments 
as  Hurlingham,  Prince's,  etc.  In  1848,  when  I  was  first 
introduced  to  club-land,  there  were  twenty-three  clubs  : 
the  Army  and  Navy,  which  then  had  its  quarters  in  St. 
James's  Square,  and  in  the  summer  time  used  to  have  a 
tent  in  its  garden  ;  Arthur's,  Athenaeum,  Boodle's — with 
a  very  different  set  of  members  ;  Brooks's,  Cocoa  Tree, 
Conservative,  East  India  United  Service,  Garrick — in  a 
different  house  ;  Guards',  at  the  top  of  St.  James's  Street ; 
Junior  United  Service,  National,  Oriental,  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  Portland,  Reform,  Travellers',  Union,  United 
Service,  United  University,  White's,  and  the  Windham. 
In  addition  to  these  there  were  a  few  which  have  been  long 
since  defunct:  the  Alfred,  a  great  place  for  superior  Gov- 
ernment clerks,  at  the  northern  end  of  Albemarle  Street 
in  premises  which,  after  it  dissolved  and  was  partially 
incorporated  with  the  Oriental,  became  the  Westminster, 
established  by  the  leading  London  tradesmen,  where  the 
dinners  were  excellent  and  the  play  was  high  ;  the  Cov- 
entry, known  as  the  "  Velvet  Cushion,"  a  very  "  smart " 
place  on  Piccadilly  Hill,  premises  now  occupied  by  the 
St.  James's  Club  ;  and  the  Free  Trade,  in  St.  James's 
Square. 

As  soon  as  I  was  fairly  launched  in  London,  it  was  my 
mother's  great  wish  that  I  should  belong  to  the  Garrick 
Club,  of  which  my  father  had  been  an  original  member ; 
and  though  I  was  much  under  the  age  prescribed  by  the 


224  FIFTY  YE.UiS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

regulations,  my  appearance  was  that  of  a  full-grown  man, 
and  there  was  little  reason  to  fear  that  the  fact  of  my 
having  attained  my  majority  would  be  questioned.  Ac- 
cordingly, I  was  proposed  by  the  veteran  comedian  Mr. 
Harley,  and  seconded  by  Andrew  Arcedeckne;  and,  being 
well  supported  by  members  who  had  known  my  father, 
I  was  elected  into  the  Garrick  in  December,  1848,  fully 
six  months  before  I  had  attained  my  eighteenth  year. 

The  Club  at  that  time  was  not,  in  numbers,  size,  or  im- 
portance, anything  like  what  it  is  now ;  though,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  was  more  sociable  and  snug  than  is  com- 
patible with  its  present  status.  Its  quarters  were  in  King 
Street,  Covent  Garden,  a  private  house  which  had  been 
converted  for  that  purj^ose,  the  most  striking  portion  of 
which,  however,  was  the  smoking-room,  on  the  ground- 
floor,  built  out  over  the  "  leads  " — a  good-sized  apartment, 
comfortably  furnished,  well  ventilated,  and  adorned  by 
large  pictures  specially  painted  for  it  by  Stanfield,  David 
Roberts,  and  Louis  Haghe. 

For  nearly  ten  years  this  house  was  to  me  the  pleas- 
antest,  cheeriest,  happiest  place  of  resort.  I  look  back 
upon  the  innumerable  hours  which  I  passed  there,  always 
well  treated,  and  I  am  afraid  a  good  deal  spoiled — for  I 
was  very  young  and  very  high-spirited,  and  I  dare  say. 
very  impertinent  —  with  the  greatest  delight :  it  was 
rightly  said  of  me,  years  after,  in  a  newspaper,  that  the 
Garrick  Club  was  to  me  what  Paradise  was  to  the  re- 
pentant Peri. 

Let  me  give  some  account  of  those  who  helped  me  to 
that  hapi)iness,  and  of  the  manner  in  which  I  lost  it,  as 
impartially  as  though  I  had  been  a  spectator  of  the  scene, 
instead  of  a  chief  performer  in  it. 

The  titular  chief  of  the  Club  in  those  days  was  its 
President,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  who  seldom  entered 
its  doors  ;  the  Vice  -  president  was  Lord  Tenterden,  a 
courteous  and  asthmatic  old  gentleman.  But  the  man 
wlio  had  done  most  for  the  (Warrick,  and  who  liad  the 
greatest  claim  upon  its  meml)ers,  was  John  Rowland  Dur- 
rant,  a  wealthy  and  leading  member  of  the  Stock  Ex- 
change, who  had   purchased   and  presented  to  the  Club 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH  THE  GARRIOK  CLUB.       225 

the  famous  collection  of  theatrical  portraits  and  pictures, 
originally  made  by  the  elder  Mathews,  and  then  hanging 
on  the  Garrick  walls.  Mr.  Durrant  had  always  been  a 
friend  to  the  theatrical  profession,  several  members  of 
which  had  made  good  investments  under  his  guidance  ; 
he  was  held  in  high  honor  at  the  Garrick,  had  his  special 
chair  in  the  smoking-room,  and  was  treated  with  defer- 
ence and  respect,  which  he  accepted  with  cheery  good- 
humor. 

The  chair  at  the  opposite  corner  of  the  fireplace  was 
generally  occupied  by  J.  D,,  most  mellow  of  elderly  to- 
pers, with  all  the  characteristics  of  "  Bardolph  of  Brase- 
nose  " — a  veteran  who  drank  and  swore  in  the  good  old- 
fashioned  way,  and  who  came  to  a  sad  end,  poor  old  fel- 
low, dying  alone  in  his  Temple  chambers,  on  a  Christmas 
Eve,  of  loss  of  blood  from  an  accident,  while  the  men  in 
the  rooms  below  heard  him  staggering  about  and  groan- 
ing, but  took  no  notice,  as  they  fancied  their  neighbor 
was  only  in  his  usual  condition. 

There,  too,  would  be  Mr.  Frank  Fladgate,  to  whose  con- 
stant supervising  attention  as  a  committee-man  the  Club 
owed  its  well-being,  who  is  happily  still  alive,  and  retains 
all  tliose  qualities  which  have  made  him  popular  through 
a  long  lifetime. 

A  very  big  man,  with  a  bald  head  and  a  fine  face,  was 
Edmond  Cotterill  the  scul2)tor,  principally  employed  in 
modelling  figures  and  groups  for  racing  trojjhies,  etc.,  by 
Messrs.  Garrard.  Equally  big  and  bald,  and  more  blonde 
and  bland,  was  Sir  Henry  Webb,  an  English  baronet  who 
spoke  with  a  French  accent,  and  was  mad  about  all  things 
musical. 

Charles  Kemble,  still  of  handsome  presence,  though 
turned  seventy,  and  of  courtliest  manners,  was  a  constant 
attendant.*   Wyndham  Smith,  nicknamed  the  "  Assassin," 

*  I  do  not  think  I  have  ever  met  a  man  more  hopelessly  deaf.  Some 
of  us  were  sitting  one  afternoon  at  the  Garrick,  when  a  tremendous  thun- 
der-storm broke  over  the  house.  It  raged  with  extraordinary  fury,  one 
clap  exploding  with  terrific  noise  immediately  above  us,  like  a  volley  of 
artillery.  We  looked  round  at  each  other  almost  in  horror;  when  Charles 
Kemble,  who  was  calmly  reading,  lifted  his  eyes  from  his  book,  and  said 


226  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

from  some  University  escapade,  son  of  the  great  Sydney, 
and  a  man  of  curious  saturnine  humor;  Isidore  Brasseur, 
most  delightful  of  French  professors,  whom  I  saw  a  year 
or  two  ago  at  Trouville,  a  hale  and  active  octogenarian  ; 
Egg,  the  A.R.A.;  Glasse,  an  eccentric  artist ;  delightful 
Clarkson  Stanfield  and  genial  David  Roberts  ;  Dr.  Mil- 
lingen,  a  veteran  campaigner  with  Wellington,  of  whom 
he  had  recorded  his  experiences;  G.  M.  Dowdeswell,  Q.C., 
Walter  Coulson,  Q.C.,  Sergeant  Talfourd,  and  Sergeant 
Murphy.*  Other  seniors  were  Sir  William  de  Bathe, 
Sir  Charles  Shakerley,  John  Lloyd  Clayton,  Planche,  and 
Charles  Dance,  whose  bright  intelligence  and  quick  wit 
would  never  have  been  suspected  from  his  heavy  appear- 
ance. The  two  last  named  were  great  friends,  and  had 
been  frequent  collahorateurs  /  so  that  Albert  Smith's  say- 
ing that  Victor  Hugo's  line,  "Une  danse  oil  il  n'y  a  pas 
de  planche,"  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Lyceum,  which 
Avas  supported  both  by  Dance  and  Planche,  had  truth  as 
well  as  smartness  to  recommend  it.  Another  never-fail- 
ing attendant  was  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Fitzroy  Stanhope, 
l)rother  of  the  then  Lord  Harrington,  a  pleasant,  hand- 
some old  gentleman,  who  will  probably  be  best  known  to 
I)Osterity  as  the  inventor  of  a  phaeton  which  bore  his 
name,  and  as  the  hero  of  one  of  the  "  Kilmallock  "  stories.f 

in  his  trumpet  tone,  "  I  tliink  we  are  going  to  have  8omc  thunder ;  I  feel 
it  in  ray  knees." 

•  Francis  Stack  Murphy,  sergeant-at-law,  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Northern  Circuit;  clever  at  his  profession,  but  far  cleverer  out  of  it;  a 
man  of  the  readiest  wit ;  the  king  of  legal  Bohemia.  lie  took  a  great 
liking  to  me,  and  many  of  my  evenings  were  spent  in  his  company,  either 
in  his  chamlters  in  Sergeants'  Inn — where  he  would  he  concocting  a  ba- 
shawcd  lobster,  while  importunate  visitors  were  tiiundoring  at  the  sported 
oak  —  or  in  places  of  social  resort.  Most  of  Murphy's  "good  things" 
were  flavored  with  ijros  stl^  and  will  not  bear  reproduction  in  print;  but 
it  may  be  remarked  that  the  admirable  rejoinder  to  the  man  who  ex- 
pressed his  surprise  at  having  seen  no  fish  "  when  dining  at  a  certain 
ducal  mansion  " — "  What,  had  it  all  been  eaten  upstairs  V" — which  has 
been  attributed  to  so  many,  was  really  made  by  Murphy,  and  to  Samuel 
Warren. 

f  William  O'Connell,  cousin  of  the  Liberator,  by  whom  in  a  special 
joke  he  was  nicknamed  Lord  Kilmallock — by  which  name  or  its  abbrevi- 
ation ("  Kil ")  he  was  ever  after  known — was  a  great  character  among  a 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"    WITH   THE   GARRICK  CLUB.       227 

Among  the  actors  were  the  popular  veteran,  T.  P.  Cooke 
("Tippy,"  as  he  was  always  called),  the  dancer  of  horn- 
pipes and  impersonator  of  Jack  -  tars  ;  quaint  old  John 
Pritt  Ilarley  ;  Drinkwater  Meadows,  ill  -  named,  for  he 
was  the  driest  little  chip  imaginable,  but  an  excellent 
actor  in  a  small  way  —  "carving  on  a  cherry-stone,"  as 
Jerrold  said  of  him  ;  James  Wallack,  who  was  an  excel- 
lent smoking-room  story-teller;  Ben  Webster,  Walter 
Lacy,  and  Leigh  Murray. 

The  Household  Brigade  was  represented  by  Captains 
PL  P.  de  Bathe,  C.  Seymour,  Meyricke,  and  Cuthbert 
George  Ellison,  a  very  amusing  fellow. 

Dickens  came  rarely  to  the  Club  ;  but  Thackeray  was 
dearly  fond  of  it,  and  was  always  there.  I  remember  a 
speech  of  his  at  an  annual  dinner,  then  always  held  on 
Shakspeare's  birthday,  in  Avhich  he  said,  "  We,  the  happy 

certain  set  in  London  in  those  days.  He  was  an  Irish  gentleman  of  the 
old,  fighting,  drinking,  creditor -defying  school,  who,  in  his  impoverished 
days,  lived  here  in  London,  no  one  knew  exactly  how.  He  was  a  very 
handsome  old  man,  with  a  red  face  and  white  hair;  walked  lame  from  the 
effects  of  a  bullet  in  his  hip  received  in  a  duel ;  and  had  the  deepest, 
most  rolling,  most  delightful  brogue.  He  is  said  to  have  shared  with  tlie 
O'Gorman  Mahon  the  honor  of  having  been  the  original  of  the  Mulligan. 
The  story  alluded  to  above  is  this:  One  day  Kilinallock,  who  always  at- 
tended public  promenades,  was  in  tlio  Park  pointing  out  the  celebrities 
to  a  neophyte ;  among  others  Fitzroy  Stanhope  passed.  "  D'ye  see  that 
man,  sir  ?"  asked  Kil — "  him  in  the  one-horse  thrapp  ?  That's  a  dane." 
But  the  youth,  who  had  previously  seen  the  old  clerical  aristocrat,  said, 
"  Oh  no,  it  isn't ;  that's  Mr.  Stanhope — he's  an  Englishman."  "  'Tis  not 
a  Dane  of  Swaden  that  I  mane,  sir,"  thundered  Kil ;  "  'tis  a  dane  of  the 
Churr-ch!"  Kilmallock  dined  with  me  once,  when  a  dear  friend  of  mine 
who  was  very  much  deformed  was  present.  I  saw  Kil  regarding  him 
with  much  interest.  As  we  went  up-stairs  after  dinner,  he  said  to  me, 
"A  dreadful  soight,  that  poor  fellow.  I've  been  thinking,  sir,  what  a  job 
his  tailor  must  have !  It  must  he  like  makhtg  a  dress-coat  for  a  cork- 
screw P^  The  old  gentleman  has  been  dead  for  many  years.  The  last 
time  I  saw  him  I  was  coming  away  from  a  ball  at  a  house  in  Gloucester 
Place  in  the  early  morning:  the  sujjper  had  taken  place  hours  before; 
but  as  I  passed  the  drawing-room  I  heard  voices,  and  looking  in,  saw 
some  guests,  "fit,  though  few,"  sitting  round  the  table,  presided  over  by 
the  untiring  Kil,  whose  last  words,  as  they  fell  upon  my  retreating  ear, 
were,  "  Close  up  now,  and  we'll  be  all  right.  Waiters,  be  nimble  wid  the 
wine  there !" 


228  FIFTY  YEAliS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

initiated,  never  speak  of  it  as  the  Garrick  ;  to  us  it  is 
the  G.,  the  little  G.,  the  dearest  place  in  the  world  !" 

Samuel  Lover,  Robert  Bell,  Henry  Spicer,  and,  later  on, 
Charles  Reade  and  Peter  Cunningham,  were  regular  fre- 
quenters, as  were  Charles  Taylor,  Arabin,  Arcedeckne, 
H.  C.  Ibbetson,  J.  L.  O'Beirne,  Sir  Charles  Ibbetson,  Sir 
George  Armytage,  and  a  certain  Mr.  Joseph  Arden,  a 
prize  bore.  The  steward  of  the  Club,  happily  named 
Hamblett,  was  a  great  character. 

I  had  been  a  member  of  this  pleasant  company  for 
nearly  ten  years,  and  I  suppose  I  should  have  remained 
so  until  the  present  moment,  had  I  not  had  the  good — or 
bad — fortune,  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  decide  which 
it  was,  to  be  present  on  Saturday,  22d  May,  1858,  at  a 
Greenwich  dinner,  given  by  Mr.  Vizetelly  to  the  staff 
of  the  Illustrated  Times,  and  to  be  driven  to  London  af- 
terwards by  Mr.  Maxwell,  the  publisher.  My  subsequent 
connection  with  Mr.  Maxwell  was  satisfactory — I  hope  to 
both  of  us,  certainly  to  me.  I  was  indebted  to  him  for 
constant  employment,  and  can  never  forget  that  he  had 
sufficient  faith  in  me  to  allow  me,  wholly  untried  as  a 
novelist,  to  make  my  first  experiment  in  that  character 
in  the  pages  of  his  magazine.  But  whether  my  first  very 
brief  engagement  with  him  was  for  my  benefit  or  not,  I 
am  quite  unable  to  say. 

In  the  course  of  our  homeward  drive  Mr.  Maxwell  told 
me  that  he  had  just  started  a  little  periodical  called  Toicn 
Talk,  on  which  he  offered  me  emi)loyment  at  a  salary  of 
three  pounds  per  week.  This  offer  I  gladly  accepted.  ^\\ 
new  bantling  was  a  very  different  kind  of  production 
from  the  obscene  sheet  which  has  in  later  years  appropri- 
ated its  title.  It  was  a  quiet,  harmless  little  paper,  with 
a  political  cartoon  drawn  by  Watts  Phillips,  who  also 
cnntri})Utcd  its  politics  and  heavy  literature.  It  contained 
a  portion  of  a  serial  story,  a  set  of  verses— in  which,  in 
the  number  before  me,  I  recognize  Fraiik  Scudamore's 
]ijind — and  a  certain  amount  of  scissors-work ;  all  the  rest 
of  the  original  matter  was  mine. 

Al)out  tlie  third  week  of  my  engagement  I  went  over 
to  the  printer's,  which  was  in  Aldersgatc  Street,  close  by 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"  WITH  THE  GARRICK  CLUB.       229 

the  Post-oflfice,  at  the  close  of  my  official  work,  to  "  make 
up"  the  paper.  All  my  contribution  was  in  type,  and 
I  thought  I  should  only  have  to  remain  for  half  an 
hour  to  "  see  all  straight,"  when  I  was  horrified  at  hear- 
ing from  the  head-printer  that  in  consequence  of  illness 
Mr.  Watts  Phillips  had  not  sent  in  his  usual  amount,  and 
that  another  column  of  original  matter  was  absolutely 
requisite.  There  was  no  help  for  it ;  I  took  off  my  coat 
— literally,  I  remember,  for  it  was  a  warm  evening — 
mounted  a  high  stool  at  a  high  desk,  and  commenced  to 
cudgel  my  brains. 

It  happened  that  in  the  previous  week's  number  I  had 
written  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  Dickens,  which  had  given 
satisfaction  ;  I  thought  I  could  not  do  better  than  follow 
on  with  a  similar  portrait  of  his  great  rival.  And  this  is 
what  I  wrote : 

"LITERARY   TALK. 

"Finding  that  our  pen-and-ink  portrait  of  Mr.  diaries  Dicicens  has  been 
mucli  talked  of  and  extensively  quoted,  we  purpose  giving  each  week  a 
sketch  of  some  literary  celebrity.     This  week  our  subject  is 

"MR.  W.  M.  THACKERAY. 

"his  appearance. 

"Mr.  Thackeray  is  forty-six  years  old,  though  from  the  silvery  white- 
ness of  his  hair  he  appears  somewhat  older.  He  is  very  tall,  standing 
upward  of  six  feet  two  inches,  and  as  he  walks  erect  his  height  makes 
him  conspicuous  in  every  assembly.  His  face  is  bloodless,  and  not  par- 
ticularly expressive,  but  remarkable  for  the  fracture  of  the  bridge  of  the 
nose,  the  result  of  an  accident  in  youth.  He  wears  a  small  gray  whisker, 
but  otherwise  is  clean-shaven.  No  one  meeting  him  could  fail  to  rec- 
ognize in  him  a  gentleman ;  his  bearing  is  cold  and  uninviting,  his  style 
of  conversation  either  openly  cynical  or  affectedly  good-natured  and  benev- 
olent ;  his  bonhomie  is  forced,  his  wit  biting,  his  pride  easily  touched ;  but 
his  appearance  is  invariably  that  of  the  cool,  suave,  well-bred  gentleman, 
who,  whatever  may  be  rankling  within,  suffers  no  surface  display  of  his 
emotion. 

"his  career. 

"  For  many  years  Mr.  Thackeray,  though  a  prolific  writer,  and  holding 
constant  literary  employment,  was  unknown  by  name  to  the  great  bulk 
of  the  public.  To  Fvaser^s  Magazine  he  was  a  regular  contributor,  and 
very  shortly  after  the  commencement  of  Punch  he  joined  Mr.  Mark 
Lemon's  staff.  In  the  Punch  pages  appeared  many  of  his  wisest,  most 
thoughtful,  and  wittiest  essays ;  '  Mr.  Brown's  Letters  to  his  Nephew '  on 
love,  marriage,  friendship,  choice  of  a  club,  etc.,  contain  an  amount  of 


230  FIFTY   YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

worldly  wisdom  which,  independently  of  the  amusement  to  be  obtained 
from  them,  render  them  really  valuable  reading  to  young  men  beginning 
life.  The  'Book  of  Snobs,'  equally  perfect  in  its  way,  also  originally  ap- 
peared iu  Punch.  Here,  too,  were  published  his  buffooneries,  his  '  Ballads 
of  Policeman  X,'  his  '  Jeames's  Diary,'  and  some  other  scraps,  the  mere 
form  of  which  consisted  iu  outrages  ou  orthography,  and  of  which  he  is 
now  deservedly  ashamed.  It  was  with  the  publication  of  the  third  or 
fourth  number  of  '  Vanity  Fair '  that  Mr.  Thackeray  began  to  dawn  upon 
the  reading  public  as  a  great  genius.  This  great  work— which,  with  per- 
haps the  exception  of  '  The  Newcomes,'  is  the  most  perfect  literary  dissec- 
tion of  the  human  heart,  done  with  the  cleverest  and  most  unsparing 
hand— had  been  offered  to,  and  rejected  by,  several  of  the  first  publishers 
in  London.  But  the  public  saw  and  recognized  its  value ;  the  great  guns 
of  literature,  the  Quarterly  and  the  Edinburgh,  boomed  forth  their  praises, 
the  light  tirailleurs  in  the  monthly  and  weekly  press  re-echoed  the  feux  de 
joie,  and  the  novelist's  success  was  made.  '  Peudennis '  followed,  and 
was  equally  valued  by  the  literary  world,  but  scarcely  so  popular  with  the 
public.  Then  came  '  Esmond,'  which  fell  almost  still-born  from  the  press ; 
and  then  '  The  Newcomes,'  perhaps  the  best  of  all.  '  The  Virginians,' 
now  publishing,  though  admirably  written,  lacks  interest  of  plot,  and  is 
proportionately  unsuccessful. 

"  HIS   SUCCESS, 

commencing  with  '  Vanity  Fair,'  culminated  with  his  '  Lectures  on  the 
English  Humorists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,'  which  were  atteiuied  by 
all  the  court  and  fashion  of  London.  The  prices  were  e.\travagant,  the 
lecturer's  adulation  of  birth  and  position  was  extravagant,  the  success  was 
extravagant.  No  one  succeeds  better  than  Mr.  Thackeray  in  cutting  his 
coat  according  to  his  clotli.  Here  he  flattered  the  aristocracy ;  but  when 
he  crossed  the  Atlantic  George  Washington  became  the  idol  of  his  wor- 
ship, the  'Four  Georges'  the  ol).jects  of  his  bitterest  attacks.  These  last- 
named  lectures  have  been  dead  failures  in  England,  though  as  literary 
compositions  they  are  most  excellent.  Our  own  opinion  is  that  his  suc- 
cess is  on  the  wane.  His  writings  never  were  understood  or  appreciated 
even  by  the  middle  cla8.><es ;  the  aristocracy  iiave  been  alienated  by  his 
American  onshuight  on  tlieir  body ;  and  the  educated  and  reliiied  are  not 
sufficientlv  numerous  to  constitute  an  audience.  Moreover,  tliere  is  a  want 
of  heart  in  all  he  writes,  which  is  not  to  be  balanced  by  the  most  brilliant 
sarcasm  and  the  most  perfect  knowledge  of  the  workings  of  the  human 
heart." 

As  80011  as  this  litllc  ski-tdi  was  written,  and  while  the 
ink  was  scarcely  dry,  I  handed  the  slips  to  the  printer, 
and  went  off.  I  never  saw  it  in  proof,  I  never  thought 
of  it  again.  That  it  was  offensive  or  objectionahle,  or 
likely  tt)  bring  me  into  trdiihlc,  T  rou Id  not  have  thought, 
for  that  very  evening  I  mentioned  at  the  Garrick  Club 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH  THE   GARRICK   CLUB.       231 

to  a  well-known  litterateur,  whom  I  at  that  time  believed 
to  be  a  friend  of  mine,  the  fact  of  my  new  engagement, 
with  a  general  idea  of  what  I  was  doing  for  it.  I  have 
not  the  least  doubt  it  was  from  this  person  that  Thack- 
eray had  his  information  as  to  the  writer. 

Two  days  after  I  received  the  following  letter: 

"36  Ouslow  Square,  S.W.,  June  14. 

"  Sir, — I  have  received  two  numbers  of  a  little  paper  called  Town  Talk, 
containing  notices  respecting  myself,  of  which,  as  I  learn  from  the  best 
authority,  you  are  the  writer. 

"In  the  first  article  of  'Literary  Talk'  you  think  fit  to  publish  an  in- 
correct account  of  my  private  dealings  with  my  publishers. 

"  In  this  week's  number  appears  a  so-called  '  Sketch,'  containing  a  de- 
scription of  my  manners,  person,  and  conversation,  and  an  account  of  my 
literary  works,  which  of  course  you  are  at  liberty  to  praise  or  condemn 
as  a  literary  critic. 

"But  you  state,  with  regard  to  my  conversation,  that  it  is  either  ' frank- 
ly cynical  or  affectedly  benevolent  and  good-natured ;'  and  of  my  works 
(lectures)  that  in  some  I  showed  'an  extravagant  adulation  of  rank  and 
position,'  whicii  in  other  lectures  ('  as  I  know  how  to  cut  my  coat  accord- 
ing to  my  cloth  ')  became  the  object  of  my  bitterest  attack. 

"As  I  understand  your  phrases,  you  impute  insincerity  to  me  when  I 
speak  good-naturedly  in  private,  assign  dishonorable  motives  to  me  for 
sentiments  which  I  have  delivered  in  public,  and  charge  me  with  advanc- 
ing statements  whicli  I  have  never  delivered  at  all. 

"Had  your  remarks  been  written  by  a  person  unknown  to  me,  I  should 
have  noticed  them  no  more  than  other  cahuunies ;  but  as  we  have  shaken 
hands  more  than  once,  and  met  hitherto  on  friendly  terms   (you  may 

ask  one  of  your  employers,  Mr.  of ,  whether  I  did  not  speak 

of  you  very  lately  in  the  most  friendly  manner),  I  am  obliged  to  take 
notice  of  articles  which  I  consider  to  be  not  offensive  and  unfriendly 
merely,  but  slanderous  and  untrue. 

"We  meet  at  a  club,  where,  before  you  were  born,  I  believe,  I  and 
other  gentlemen  have  been  in  the  habit  of  talking  without  any  idea  that 
our  conversation  would  supply  paragraphs  for  professional  venders  of 
'  Literary  Talk ;'  and  I  don't  remember  that  out  of  that  club  I  have  ever 
exchanged  six  words  with  you.  Allow  me  to  inform  you  that  the  talk 
which  you  have  heard  there  is  not  intended  for  newspaper  remark ;  and 
to  beg — as  I  have  a  right  to  do — that  you  will  refrain  from  printing  com- 
ments upon  my  private  conversations ;  that  you  will  forego  discussions, 
however  blundering,  upon  my  private  affairs  ;  and  that  you  will  henceforth 
please  to  consider  any  question  of  my  personal  truth  and  sincerity  as 
quite  out  of  the  province  of  your  criticism. 

"  W.  M.  Thackeray. 
"E.  Yates,  Esq." 


232  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

"Now  it  must,  I  think,  be  admitted  by  the  most  impartial 
reader  that  this  letter  is  severe  to  the  jjoint  of  cruelty; 
that  whatever  the  silliness  and  impertinence  of  the  arti- 
cle, it  was  scarcely  calculated  to  have  provoked  so  curi- 
ously bitter  an  outburst  of  personal  feeling  against  its 
writer ;  that,  in  comparison  with  the  offence  committed 
by  me,  the  censure  administered  by  Mr.  Thackeray  is 
almost  ludicrously  exaggei'ated.  The  question  naturally 
suggests  itself,  how  such  a  disparity  between  the  peccant 
composition  and  the  witheringly  wrathful  and  rancorous 
reply  is  to  be  accounted  for?  To  that  matter  I  may  pres- 
ently revert.  Here  I  will  only  say  that  Mi*.  Thackeray's 
letter,  as  it  Avell  might  have  done,  came  upon  me  with  a 
sense  of  amazement.  But  although  I  had  at  the  moment 
no  idea  of  the  motive  which  impelled  Thackeray  to  insist 
so  strongly  upon  the  fact  that  the  Club  was  our  only 
common  meeting -ground,  and  that  it  was  thence  my 
Ijresumed  knowledge  of  him  was  derived,  I  felt  that 
the  sentence  in  which  he  emphasized  the  fact  afforded 
me  a  legitimate  opportunity  for  a  tolerably  effective  re- 
tort. 

I  therefore  sat  dovm  at  once,  and  wrote  Mr.  Thackeray 
a  letter  in  which  I  not  only  disclaimed  the  motives  by 
which  he  had  accused  me  of  being  actuated,  but  took  the 
liberty  of  reminding  him  of  some  past  errors  of  his  own 
— rather  strong  errors  of  a  similar  kind  as  to  taste — not 
the  result  of  the  hasty  occupation  of  an  hour,  but  delib- 
eratel}^  extending  over  a  long  space  of  time,  persisted  in 
from  month  to  month,  and  marked  by  the  most  wanton, 
reckless,  and  aggravated  personality.  I  reminded  him 
how,  in  his  "  YoUowplush  Correspondence,"  he  had  de- 
scribed Dr.  Lardiicr  and  Sir  E.  L.  Buhver  :  "One  was 
pail  and  wor  spckticklcs,  a  wig,  and  a  white  neck-cloth  ; 
the  other  was  slim,  with  a  hook  nose,  a  pail  fase,  a  small 
waist,  a  pare  of  falling  shoulders,  a  tight  coat,  and  a  cata- 
rack  of  Ijlack  satting  tumbling  out  of  his  busm,  and  fall- 
ing into  a  gilt  velvet  weskit."  How  he  had  held  them 
up  to  ridicule  by  calling  them  "  Docthor  Athanasius 
Lardncr"  and  "  Mistaw  Edwad  Lytton  Bulwig,"  by  re- 
jiroducing  the  brogue  of  the  one  and  the  drawl  of  the 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH   THE   GARRICK   CLUB.       233 

other,  and  by  exhibiting  them  as  contemptible  in  every 
way. 

In  regard  to  the  Garrick  Club,  I  called  Mr.  Thackeray's 
attention  to  the  fact  that  he  had  not  merely,  in  his  "  Book 
of  Snobs,"  and  under  the  pseudonym  of  Ca2)tain  Shindy, 
given  an  exact  sketch  of  a  former  member,  Mr.  Stephen 
Price,  I'eproducing  Mr.  Price's  frequent  and  well-known 
phrases  ;  he  had  not  merely,  in  the  same  book,  drawn  on 
a  wood-block  a  close  resemblance  of  Wyndham  Smith,  a 
fellow-member,  which  was  printed  among  the  "Sporting 
Snobs,"  Mr.  W.  Smith  being  a  sporting  man  ;  he  had  not 
merely,  in  "Pendennis,"  made  a  sketch  of  a  former  mem- 
ber, Captain  Granby  Calcraft,  under  the  name  of  Captain 
Granby  Tiptoif,  but  in  the  same  book,  under  the  name  of 
Foker,  he  had  most  offensively,  though  amusingly,  repro- 
duced every  characteristic,  in  language,  manner,  and  gest- 
ure of  our  fellow-member,  Mr.  Andrew  Arcedeckne,  and 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  give  an  exact  woodcut  portrait  of 
him,  to  Mr.  Arcedeckne's  intense  annoyance.* 

This  letter  would  at  least  have  been  a  Roland  for  an 
Oliver ;  and  had  I  sent  it,  I  might  possibly  have  heard 
no  more  of  Mr.  Thackeray  or  his  outraged  sensitiveness. 
The  argument  was  not,  perhaps,  very  polished  or  telling  ; 
but  the  tu  quoque  was  so  complete,  and  so  incisively  put, 
as  to  perfectly  prove  to  a  man  of  Thackeray's  quickness 
the  folly  of  further  proceedings.  But,  unhappily,  I  re- 
solved upon  seeking  some  advice  before  despatching  my 
reply. 

I  first  thought  of  consulting  Albert  Smith,  but  I  re- 
membered there  were  the  remains  of  a  little  ill-feeling  on 
his  part  towards  Thackeray  which  might  deprive  his  coun- 


*  Arcedeckne,  however,  had  his  revenge.  On  the  night  after  Thacke- 
ray's dehvery  of  his  first  lecture  on  the  "  Humorists  "  at  WiUis's  Kooms, 
where  he  had  a  very  aristocratic  audience,  the  great  cynic  w^as  preening 
himself  under  a  mass  of  congratulations  at  the  Cider  Cellars  Club,  when 
Arcedeckne  entered,  and  walked  up  to  him.  "  How  are  you,  Tliack  ?"  he 
said,  buttoning  his  coat  across  in  his  usual  fashion.  "  I  was  at  your  show 
to-day  at  Willis's.  What  a  lot  of  swells  you  had  there — yes !  But  I 
thought  it  was  dull  —  devilish  dull !  I'll  tell  you  what  it  is,  Thack,  you 
want  a  piano  r 


234  I'IFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

sel  of  its  moral  value.  A  year  before,  Thackeray,  having 
heard  that  A.  S.  had  not  behaved  generously  to  an  old 
friend,  spoke  somewhat  slightingly  of  him.  The  story 
was  wholly  untrue,  as  Thackeray  was  brought  to  acknowl- 
edge. And  another  thing,  small  though  it  seemed,  had 
tended  to  widen  the  breach.  Albert  Smith,  asked  for  an 
autograph,  had  written  in  an  album  : 

"  Mont  Blanc  is  the  monarch  of  mountaina, 
They  crowned  him  long  ago ; 
But  who  they  got  to  put  it  on 
I  don't  exactly  know." 

The  book  was  sent  the  next  day,  with  a  similar  request, 
to  Thackeray,  and  he  wrote,  immediately  under  the  fore- 
going : 

"  Albert,  of  course,  wrote  in  a  hurry, 
To  criticise  I  scarce  presume ; 
And  yet  I  think  that  Limlley  Murray, 
Instead  of  '  who,'  had  written  '  whom.' " 

This  was,  of  course,  told  to  Albert  Smith,  who,  though  he 
laughed,  did  not  half  like  it. 

So  I  gave  up  all  thought  of  consulting  Albert,  whose 
blunt  common-sense  would,  I  imagine,  have  recognized 
the  advisability  of  hitting  a  downright  "slogging"  blow 
by  sending  the  letter,  and  determined  to  seek  advice  from 
Dickens.  I  sent  round  a  note  to  Tavistock  House  asking 
if  I  could  see  him,  and  had  a  reply  to  say  that  he  wa,8 
dining  with  Dilke,  but  would  not  be  leaving  home  until 
after  six  :  "  I  need  not  say  you  may  in  all  things  count 
upon  yours  ever,  C.  D." 

I  told  Dickens  my  story,  showing  him  Thackeray's  let- 
ter and  my  reply.  Of  the  latter  he  did  not  approve  :  it 
was  too  flii)pant  and  too  violent  ;  and  after  a  little  dis- 
cussion, the  following  acknowledgment  was  sent : 

"June  16, 1868. 

"  Sir,— I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  this  day's 
date,  referring  to  two  articles  of  which  I  am  the  writer. 

"  You  will  excuse  my  pointing  out  to  you  that  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
me  bo\ind  to  accept  your  angry  '  und.rstanding'  of  my 'phrases."  I  do 
not  accept  it  in  the  least:  I  altogether  reject  it. 

"  I  cannot  characterize  your  letter  in  any  other  terms  than  those  in 
which  you  characterized  the  article  which  has  given  you  so  much  offence. 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"  WITH  THE  GARRICK  CLUB.       235 

If  your  letter  to  me  were  not  both  '  slanderous  and  untrue,'  I  should  read- 
ily have  discussed  its  subject  with  you,  and  avowed  ray  earnest  and  frank 
desire  to  set  right  anything  I  may  have  left  wrong.  Your  letter  being 
what  It  is,  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  my  present  reply. 

"Edmund  Yates." 

By  the  end  of  the  week  Mr.  Thackeray  had  decided 
upon  the  course  to  be  pursued,  and  wrote  thus  : 

"  Mr.  Thackeray  has  this  day  forwarded  a  copy  of  the  ensuing  letter  to 
the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club,  with  the  enclosures  mentioned  in  the 

"  '36  Onslow  Square,  June  19,  1858. 

"  '  Gentlemkn, — The  accompanying  letters  have  passed  between  me  and 
Mr.  Edmund  Yates,  another  member  of  the  Garriek  Club. 

"  'Rather  than  have  any  further  personal  controversy  with  him,  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  submit  our  correspondence  to  you,  with  a  copy  of  the 
newspaper  which  has  been  the  cause  of  our  difference. 

" '  I  think  I  may  fairly  appeal  to  the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club  to 
decide  whether  the  complaints  I  have  against  Mr.  Yates  are  not  well 
founded,  and  whether  the  practice  of  publishing  such  articles  as  that 
which  I  enclose  will  not  be  fatal  to  the  comfort  of  the  Club,  and  is  not 
intolerable  in  a  society  of  gentlemen.  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  '  W.  M.  Thackeray.'  " 

In  the  first  surprise  of  this  intelligence  I  addressed  the 
Committee  thus  : 

"June  19,1858. 
"  Gentlemen,  —  I  have  just  heard  from    Mr.  Thackeray  that  he  has 
thought  proper  to  lay  before  you  the  details  of  a  personal  difference  be- 
tween us. 

"  This  course  has  come  before  me  utterly  unexpectedly,  and  I  therefore 
beg  you  to  suspend  your  judgment  until  I  have  consulted  my  friends,  and 
been  able  to  prepare  my  own  version  of  the  matter  for  submission  to  you. 
"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"Edmund  Yates. 
"To  the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club." 

Under  date  of  the  same  day  I  received  this  communi- 
cation from  the  Secretary  of  the  Club  : 

"  Garrick  Club,  19th  June,  1858. 
"  Sir, — I  have  the  honor,  by  the  direction  of  the  Committee,  to  acknowl- 
edge the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  19th  June. 

"I  am  further  directed  to  inform  you  that  a  Special  Meeting  of  the 
Committee  is  called  for  Saturday  next,  at  half-past  three  o'clock,  to  take 
the  subject  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  complaint  into  consideration. 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir,  your  most  obedient  servant, 

"Alexander  Doland,  (Secretary. 
"E.  H.  Yatbb,  EBq." 


206  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  in  my  little  article  there 
was  no  mention  of  the  Garrick  Club,  not  the  faintest  ref- 
erence to  anything  heard,  said,  or  done  there.  The  Com- 
mittee of  the  Club,  therefore,  had  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  matter — a  position  which  I  took  up  in  the  fol- 
lowing letter  : 

"  June  23,  1858. 

"Gentlemen, — I  have  received  an  obliging  intimation  from  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Club  that  the  Committee  will  assemble  on  Saturday  next,  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  into  consideration  a  complaint  made  against  me  by 
Mr.  Thackeray. 

"  With  the  greatest  respect,  I  beg  to  submit  that  Mr.  Thackeray's  griev- 
ance is  not  one  to  be  submitted  to  the  Committee.  His  grievance  is  a 
certain  article  written  by  me  in  a  certain  newspaper ;  that  article  makes 
no  reference  to  the  Club,  refers  to  no  conversation  that  took  place  there, 
violates  no  confidence  reposed  there,  either  in  myself  or  any  one  else. 

"  This  article  may  be  in  exceedingly  bad  taste ;  but  I  submit  with  great 
deference,  and  subject  to  the  Committee's  better  judgment,  that  the  Com- 
mittee is  not  a  Committee  of  taste.  This  article  may  be,  most  uninten- 
tionally, incorrect  in  details ;  but  unless  I  had  so  far  forgotten  the  honor 
and  character  of  a  gentleman  as  wilfully  to  distort  truth,  I  still  venture  to 
submit  that  its  inaccuracy  is  not  a  question  for  tlie  Committee's  collective 
decision. 

"  Mr.  Thackeray's  course  in  laying  this  matter  before  the  Committee  I 
hold  to  be  unprecedented.  Unless  I  am  mistaken,  there  are  members  of 
the  Committee's  own  body  who  have  been  the  subject  of  very  strong  re- 
marks in  print  by  fellow-members  of  the  Club,  but  who  have  no  more 
thought  of  laying  their  personal  injuries  and  resentments  before  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  Club  tlian  before  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

"  Once  again,  I  take  this  position  with  the  greatest  respect.  If  the  Com- 
mittee think  otherwise,  then  I  readily  sul)mit  myself  to  the  correction  of 
the  Committee ;  and  recognize  as  fully  as  the  Committee  can  that  Mr. 
Thackeray  lays  the  correspondence  before  them  in  the  legitimate  and  cus- 
tomary way.* 


*  I  may  mention  here  that  there  was  a  little  vaporing  gossip  about 
the  Garrick  Club  as  to  my  intending,  through  this  phrase  or  some  other, 
to  abide  by  the  Committee's  verdict  or  the  verdict  of  the  General  Meeting 
—I  don't  know  which,  and  I  lieiicve  no  small-talker  knew  which.  The 
fact  stanils  thus :  I  appcaldl  to  the  (Jencral  Meeting  from  the  Committee, 
as  an  agi^rieved  person  might  appeal  from  a  Vice-chancellor  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor.  Not  righted,  I  appealed  again,  as  the  same  person  might 
tlicn  appeal  to  the  Hou.se  of  Lords.  I  did  not  wish  to  be  iliscourteous  and 
refuse  to  appear  before  either  of  the  two  Club  courts.  That  the  General 
Meeting  never  considered  me  pledged  to  abide  by  their  decision  is  made 
manifi-Ht  in  their  own  proceeilings,  l.y  their  "  trusting  that  a  most  disagree- 
able duty  might  be  spared  them  "  through  my  not  abiding  by  it 


MY  "DIFFICULTY"   WITH   THE   G.1KRICK  CLUB.       237 

"In  this  case,  but  not  otherwise,  I  strongly  entreat  the  attention  of  the 
Committee  to  the  terms  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  letter  of  the  14th  inst. ;  and 
when  the  Committee  have  heard  that  letter  read,  I  ask  whether  Mr.  Thacke- 
ray rendered  it  possible  for  me  to  express  my  regret  for  having  given  him 
offence  ?  I  am,  gentlemen,  your  obedient  servant, 

..„   ,,    „  "Edmund  Yates. 

"To  the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club." 

The  Committee  held  a  meeting,  and  sent  me  this  letter: 

"Garrick  Club,  2t>tli  June,  1858. 

"Sir, — I  have  the  honor,  by  the  direction  of  the  Commiiloo,  U)  acknowl- 
edge the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  23d  instant,  and  to  make  the  follow- 
ing communication  to  you : 

"At  a  Special  Meeting  of  the  Committee,  on  Saturday,  the  26th  June, 
1858,  it  was  unanimously  resolved : 

" '  1st.  That  it  is  competent  to  the  Committee  to  enter  into  Mr.  Thacke- 
ray's complaints  against  Mr.  Yates. 

"  '  2d.  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  Committee  that  Mr.  Thackeray's  com- 
plaints against  Mr.  Yates  are  well  founded,  and  that  the  practice  of  pub- 
lishing such  articles,  being  reflections  by  one  member  of  the  Club  against 
any  other,  will  be  fatal  to  the  comfort  of  the  Club,  and  is  intolerable  in  a 
society  of  gentlemen. 

" '  8d.  That  in  the  opinion  of  the  Committee,  Mr.  Yates  is  bound  to  make 
an  ample  apology  to  Mr.  Thackeray,  or  to  retire  from  the  Club  ;  and  if  Mr. 
Yates  declines  to  apologize  or  retire,  the  Committee  will  consider  it  their 
duty  to  call  a  General  Meeting  of  the  Club  to  consider  this  subject. 

"  '4th.  That  copies  of  these  resolutions  be  sent  to  Mr.  Thackeray  and 
Mr.  Yates. 

"  *  Lastly,  That  this  Special  Meeting  of  the  Committee  do  stand  adjourned 
to  Saturday,  the  M  of  July.' 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir, 

"  Your  most  obedient,  very  humble  servant, 

"Alexander  Doland. 
"To  W.  M.  Thaokeeay,  Esq.,  and  to  E.  H.  Yates,  Esq." 

This  was  an  anxious  time;  there  were  frequent  councils, 
at  which  John  Forster,  W.  H.  Wills,  Albert  and  Arthur 
Smith,  as  well  as  Dickens  and  myself,  were  present. 
Just  then  out  came  the  (I  think)  seventh  number  of  "  The 
Virginians,"  containing  a  wholly  irrelevant  and  ridicu- 
lously lugged  -  in  -  by  -  the  -  shoulders  allusion  to  me,  as 
"Young  Grub  Street," in  its  pages.*     This  was  generally 

*  It  was  a  pleasant  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  to  make  senii- veiled, 
but  unmistakable,  allusions  in  his  books  to  persons  at  the  time  obnoxious 
to  him.  Bz.  gr.  a  reference  to  "  my  dear  young  literary  friends  George 
Garbage  and  Bob  Bowstreet.'' 


238  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

considered  to  be  hitting  below  the  belt  while  pretending 
to  fight  on  the  square,  and  to  be  unworthy  of  a  man  in 
Mr.  Thackeray's  position.  To  the  above  letter  of  the 
Committee  I  replied  : 

"  43  Doughty  Street,  W.  C,  July  1, 1869. 

"Gentlemen, — I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your 
Secretary's  letter  of  tlie  26th  ultimo,  making  me  acquainted  with  the  reso- 
lutions you  passed  on  that  day,  in  reference  to '  Mr.  Thackeray's  complaints 
against  Mr.  Yates.' 

"  With  all  respect  and  deference,  I  beg  to  state  to  you  that  I  will  not 
retire  from  the  Club,  and  that  I  cannot  apologize  to  Mr.  Thackeray.  I 
would  very  gladly  do  the  latter,  if  the  terms  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  letter  to 
me  were  less  offensive  ;  but  I  conceive  that  if  I  made  an  '  ample  apology' 
to  the  writer  of  that  communication,  I  should  myself  deserve  that  portion 
of  it  which  you  adopt  in  your  second  resolution,  and  should  be  '  intolera- 
ble in  a  society  of  gentlemen.'  I  therefore  desire  to  appeal  from  your 
opinion  to  a  General  Aleeting  on  the  two  questions: 

"  Firstly,  Whether  the  cause  between  Mr.  Thackeray  and  myself  is  a  case 
to  be  submitted  to  you  at  all. 

"Secondly,  Whether,  if  it  be,  Mr.  Thackeray  has  any  right  to  claim 
an  apology  from  one  whom  he  has  so  very  arrogantly  and  coarsely 
addressed. 

"  With  great  regret  that  I  cannot  defer  to  your  decision,  and  with  much 

esteem  and  consi.leiution, 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  gentlemen, 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

„  "Edmund  Yates. 

"To  the  Committee,  Garrick  Club." 

Upon  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  the  Committee  sum- 
moned a  General  Meeting  of  the  Club  for  the  10th  July, 
to  take  into  consideration  the  whole  question,  and  at  once 
set  to  work  to  whip  up  support.  We,  on  our  side,  were 
not  idle:  we  should  lose  Albert  Smith's  vote  and  personal 
infliK'iice  at  the  meeting,  as  he  had  made  arrangements  to 
sail  for  China,  in  search  of  material  for  a  new  entertain- 
ment, on  the  8th;  but  we  had  many  promises  of  adhe- 
rence. The  (picsfion  lying  between  the  Committee,  as 
supporting  Tliackeray,  and  myself,  it  was  argued  that 
neither  of  tlie  contending  parties  ought  to  vote,  and  there 
was  some  discussion  among  us  as  to  whether  I  could  be 
present  at  the  meeting.  The  f.dlowing  hitter  from  Dick- 
ens, on  the  point,  well  e.\eni|.Iities  his  practical  and  busi- 
ness-like (Oiaracter  : 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH  THE  GARRICK  CLUB.       239 

"Gad's  Hill  Plnce,  Ilighnni  by  Rochester,  Kent. 
"Tweuty-sixlli  July,  1SS8. 

"  Mt  dear  Edmund, — I  have  been  thinking  about  the  General  Meeting. 
My  considerations  and  reconsiderations  thereupon  induce  lue  to  recom- 
mend you  not  to  attend  it  in  person. 

"Firstly,  I  think  it  pretty  certain  that  Tliackeray  will  stay  away.  If  he 
should  do  so,  it  would  be  regarded  as  an  act  of  delicacy  in  him ;  and  your 
doing  the  reverse  would  be  regarded  as  an  act  of  indelicacy  in  you. 

"  Secondly,  Though  he  should  come — still,  your  staying  away  will  show 
well  by  the  side  of  his  presence. 

"  Thirdly,  It  is  very  difficult  indeed  for  any  one,  though  practised  in  pub- 
lic meetings  and  appearances,  to  keep  quiet  at  such  a  discussion,  the  said 
any  one  being  a  principal  therein. 

"Fourthly,  You  could  do  nothing  if  you  were  there  but  deny  you  ever 
intended  to  abide  by  the  Committee's  decision.  That  I  will  say  for  you 
if  necessary. 

"  In  case  you  should  be  staggered  by  this  advice  of  mine,  ask  one  or  two 
men  of  experience  and  good  judgment,  whom  you  can  trust,  what  they  say. 
I  am  pretty  sure  that  on  careful  consideration  they  will  agree  with  me. 

"  Ever  faithfully, 

"Charles  Dickens. 

"Edmund  Yatks,  Esq." 

It  was,  however,  thought  advisable  that  I  should  send  the 
following  letter,  to  be  read  at  the  General  Meeting  : 

"  Gentlemen, — You  will  this  day  have  laid  before  you  a  correspondence 
between  Mr.  Thackeray  and  myself,  certain  resolutions  of  your  Committee 
affecting  me,  and  such  few  representations  as  I  have  thought  it  becoming 
to  offer  to  your  Committee  in  writing. 

"I  beg  to  assure  you  that  although  I  consider  Mr.  Thackeray  to  have 
placed  it  out  of  my  power  to  apologize  to  him,  I  am  perfectly  willing  to 
apologize  to  you  for  any  unpleasant  feeling  that  I  may  have  awakened  in 
the  Club  by  the  publication  of  the  unfortunate  article  in  question.  I  have 
no  hesitation  whatever  in  expressing  to  you  (but  not  to  Mr.  Thackeray)  my 
sincere  regret  that  I  ever  wrote  it,  and  put  you  to  the  pain  and  inconven- 
ience of  having^ to  take  it  into  your  consideration. 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"Edmund  Yates." 

On  Friday,  July  9th,  I  was  in  the  rooms  of  the  Garrick 
Club  for  the  last  time ;  and  I  may  mention  that,  except 
on  two  occasions  afterwards  specified,  so  long  as  that 
house  remained  in  the  occupation  of  the  Club,  I  never 
looked  upon  it  again. 

The  General  Meeting  was  held  the  next  day.  Neither 
Thackeray  nor  I  attended;  but  the  Committee  were  then 


240  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

in  full  force,  and,  with  the  exception  of  Dickens,  voted  to 
a  man  in  their  own  favor.  As  an  amendment  to  a  resolu- 
tion declaring  that  the  Club  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
subject  at  issue  between  Mr.  Thackeray  and  my -ilf,  the 
following  resolutions  were  proposed  by  Mr.  James  Corne- 
lius O'Dowd,  now  holding  an  appointment  under  the  War 
Office,  but  at  that  time  assistant-editor  of  the  Globe,  which 
was  then  a  Liberal  journal: 

"  1st.  That  it  was  competent  to  the  Committee  to  enter  into  Mr.  Thack- 
eray's complaints  against  Mr.  Yates. 

"  2d.  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Meeting  that  Mr.  Thackeray's  com- 
plaints against  Mr.  Yates  are  well  founded. 

"  3d.  That  the  practice  of  publishing  such  articles,  being  reflections  by 
one  member  of  the  Club  against  any  other,  will  be  fatal  to  the  comfort  of 
the  Club,  and  is  intolerable  in  a  society  of  gentlemen. 

"  4th.  That  this  Meeting  is  at  once  prepared  to  support  the  Committee 
in  any  step  they  may  consider  necessary  for  tiie  suppression  of  this  objec- 
tionable practice. 

"  otli.  That  this  Meeting  trusts  that  a  mo.st  disagreeable  duty  may  be 
spared  it  by  Mr.  Yates  making  such  ample  apology  to  Mr.  Thackeray  as 
may  result  in  the  withdrawal  of  all  the  unpleasant  expressions  used  in 
reference  to  this  matter. 

"  Gth.  That  with  this  expression  of  opinion,  the  Meeting  refers  the  whole 
question  back  to  the  Committee." 

Tlie  speakers  who  supported  me  at  the  meeting  were 
my  friends  Mr.  Charles  Dickens,  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins,  Mr. 
Robert  Bell,  Mr.  Samuel  Lover,  Mr.  Palgrave  Simpson. 
These  may  have  been  influenced  by  personal  friendship  ; 
but  there  were  other  men  of  mark,  with  whom  T  had  no 
kind  of  acquaintance,  but  who  were  entirely  actuated  by 
a  sense  of  justice  in  defending  my  cause.  Among  tbcrtv 
I  may  name  the  late  Mr.  Justice  Willes  and  Sir  James 
Ferguson,  now  Governor  of  Bombay,  then  an  officer  in  the 
Guards,  who,  on  reading  of  the  case,  was  so  struck  with 
the  bad  feeling  of  the  cabal  against  me  that  he  hurried 
home  from  Palestini',  where  he  was  travi'lling,  to  s])eak 
and  vote  at  th.  Garrick  in  my  favor.  But  my  enemies 
were  too  numerous  and  too  j)owerful,  and  on  a  division 
Mr.  O'Dowd's  resolutions  were  carried  by  a  majority  of 
t\venty-f(jur,  tlie  numlx'rs  being  seventy  and  forty-six. 

To  the  secretary's  letter  enclosing  these  resolutions  I 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH  THE   GARRICK   CLUB.       241 

returned  no  answer.  In  pursuance  of  them  the  Commit- 
tee erased  my  name  from  the  list  of  members  on  the  20th 
July — of  which  I  received  notice  from  the  secretary.  An 
interval  of  grace  had  been  previously  left  for  me  to  apolo- 
gize to  Mr.  Thackeray;  but  I  did  not  apologize,  and  that 
was  the  result. 

I  next  took  counsel's  opinion  on  the  right  of  the  Com- 
mittee so  to  erase  my  name  and  terminate  my  member- 
ship. The  opinion  being  that  they  had  no  such  right,  and 
that  I  "had  not  been  legally  ejected  from  the  Garrick 
Club,"  I  resolved  to  try  that  question, 

I  submit  to  the  reader  that  it  will  be  seen  from  my 
letters  that  throughout  I  had  shown  the  greatest  forbear- 
ance, courtesy,  and  consideration  towards  the  Committee. 
They  did  not  return  the  compliment  very  handsomely,  for 
they  would  not  even  make  the  little  preliminary  legal 
admissions  usually  made  in  suits,  the  object  of  which  is 
to  try  a  right.  They  would  not  by  their  attorney  make 
the  formal  admission  of  a  "trespass"  having  been  com- 
mitted upon  me  in  my  ejection  from  the  Club.  And  that 
this  is  not  a  common  course,  even  among  ordinary  suit- 
ors, not  to  say  among  gentlemen  claiming  to  settle  ques- 
tions of  honor,  will  appear  from  one  of  the  opinions  of 
my  counsel,  Mr.  Honeyman,  of  Paper  Buildings,  Temple,* 
who  writes,  in  an  otherwise  dry  legal  document  (previous 
to  these  proceedings  I  had  never  seen  him  in  my  life),  "I 
cannot  help  saying  that  I  consider  the  course  pursued  by 
the  Committee  or  their  advisers  in  refusing  to  give  any 
facilities  for  trying  the  legal  question,  or  to  furnish  the 
names  of  the  responsible  parties,  as  exceedingly  discredit- 
able ;  but  if  such  course  should  be  proceeded  in,  I  recom- 
mend Mr.  Yates,  before  bringing  his  action,  to  present 
himself  at  the  Club,  and  to  insist  on  remaining  there  till 
removed." 

Therefore  I  went  to  the  Club  on  two  occasions.  On 
the  first,  the  secretary  denied  my  right  to  enter,  at  some 
point  of  the  entrance  steps  which  was  not  legally  in  the 

*  Afterwards  raised  to  the  Bench.  Mr.  Sergeant  Ballantine  also  gave 
me  some  friendly  and  valuable  advice. 

11 


242  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFK 

building.  So  I  went  again,  with  my  solicitor,  and  was 
satisfactorily  trespassed  upon,  or  so  I  was  assured,  and 
brought  my  action. 

By  the  advice  of  counsel,  I  brought  the  action  against 
the  secretary.  He  had  been  selected  and  put  forward  bv 
the  Committee  to  commit  the  trespass  ;  they  had  instruct- 
ed the  secretary  for  the  purpose  ;  he  is  the  paid  agent,  or 
servant,  who  always  executes  the  Committee's  directions  ; 
who,  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  Club,  does 
what  the  Committee  orders,  and  is  directly  responsible  to 
them ;  of  whom  the  Committee  invariably  act  as  the  mas- 
ter. I  had  given  him  written  notice  that  I  wished  to 
avoid  any  approach  to  disturbance  or  inconvenience,  and 
that  I  would  present  myself  at  the  Club  at  a  certain  time. 
At  that  time  he  received  me  there,  accompanied  by  my 
solicitor.  On  my  saying  I  must  enter,  he  replied  good- 
humoredly,  "I  suppose  this  is  what  you  want,  Mr.  Yates 
— will  this  do  ?"  and  laid  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  to 
prevent  my  going  farther.  This  was  considered  quite 
enough,  and  he  became  the  nominal  defendant. 

To  this  action,  so  brought  to  try  the  right  of  the  Com- 
mittee to  eject  me  from  the  Club  because  I  had  given 
Mr.  Thackeray  offence,  and  to  try  that  matter  of  right 
Kim])ly,  at  the  very  last  moment,  the  Committee  pleaded 
virtually  that  the  whole  property  of  the  Club  was  abso- 
lutely vested  in  trustees,  the  only  persons  responsible  on 
its  behalf  to  any  body  for  anything  ;  that  the  secretary 
was  a  name,  and  the  Committee  were  a  name;  that  nobody 
but  the  trustees  had  legally  incurred,  or  could  legally  in- 
cur, any  responsibility  arising  out  of  what  had  been  done 
to  me. 

The  result  of  this  quibble  was  that  I  had  no  remedy 
but  as  against  the  trustees,  and  no  remedy  even  as  against 
them  but  through  that  channel  which  is  known  to  every 
one  as  easy,  exjx'dit  ions,  and  inexpensive,  under  the  name 
of  the  Court  of  ('hanccry.  Referring  the  ])r()l)al)le  cost 
of  this  birthright  to  my  solicitor,  he  wrote  me  that, in  the 
event  of  my  failing,  it  would  jrfohahly  not  be  more  than 
.{,'200  or  £:{00.  Of  course,  as  a  young  man  with  the 
World  before  me,  I  was  not  i)rej)ared  to  undertake  such 


MY   "DIFFICULTY"   WITH  THE   GARRICK   CLUB.       243 

a  responsibility,  and  the  proposed  action  was  eventually- 
abandoned. 

The  solicitors  who  advised  me  in  the  matter  were 
Messrs.  Farrar  &  Ouvry  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  and 
the  counsel  retained  to  conduct  my  case  was  Mr.  Edwin 
James,  Q.C.,  who  at  that  time  stood  high  in  popular  fa- 
vor, having  recently  obtained  the  acquittal  of  Dr.  Ber- 
nard, charged  with  conspiring  against  the  Emperor  of  the 
French.  A  fat,  florid  man,  with  a  large  hard  face,  was 
Edwin  James,  with  chambers  in  the  Temple  and  rooms  in 
Pall  Mall ;  his  practice  was  extensive,  his  fees  enormous. 
I  had  many  consultations  with  him,  but  found  it  diflicult 
to  keep  him  to  the  subject  of  my  case  :  he  liked  talking, 
but  always  diverted  the  conversation  into  other  channels. 
One  day  I  took  Dickens  —  who  had  never  seen  Edwin 
James  —  to  one  of  these  consultations.  James  laid  him- 
self out  to  be  specially  agreeable  ;  Dickens  was  quietly 
observant.  About  four  months  after  appeared  the  eai-ly 
numbers  of  "  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  in  which  a  prominent 
part  was  played  by  Mr.  Stryver.*  After  reading  the  de- 
scription, I  said  to  Dickens,  "  Stryver  is  a  good  likeness." 
He  smiled.  "  Not  bad,  I  think,"  he  said,  "  especially  after 
only  one  sitting." 

There  is  no  doubt  it  was  pretty  generally  said  at  the 
time,  as  it  has  been  said  since,  and  is  said  even  now, 
that  this  whole  affair  was  a  struggle  for  supremacy,  or  an 
outburst  of  jealousy,  between  Thackeray  and  Dickens, 
and  that  my  part  was  merely  that  of  the  scapegoat  or 
shuttlecock. 

There  was  no  intimacy,  nor  anything  really  like  friend- 
ship, between  the  two  men,  though  an  outward  show  of 

*  " Mr.  Stnvcr,  a  man  of  little  more  than  thirty,  but  looking  twenty 
years  older,  stout,  loud,  red,  bluff,  and  free  from  any  drawback  of  delicacy  ' 
had  a  very  pushing  way  of  shouldering  himself,  morally  and  physically, 
into  companies  and  conversations  that  argued  well  for  his  shouldering  his 
way  up  in  life.  .  .  .  Shouldering  itself  towards  the  visage  of  the  Lord  Chief- 
justice  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  the  florid  countenance  of  Mr.  Stryver 
might  be  daily  seen,  bursting  out  of  the  bed  of  wigs  like  a  great  sunflower 
pushing  its  way  at  the  sun  from  a  rank  garden  full  of  flaring  companions. 
...  A  glib  man,  and  an  unscrupulous,  and  a  ready  and  a  bold." 


244  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

cordiality  had  been  maintained  in  public.  Dickens  had 
taken  the  chair  at  the  dinner  to  Thackeray  in  '55,  and  had 
alluded  to  the  "  treasures  of  Avit  and  wisdom  within  the 
yellow  covers;"  Thackeray,  in  his  lectures  on  "Week- 
day Preachers,"  declared  that  he  thought  Dickens  was 
specially  commissioned  by  Divine  Benevolence  to  delight 
mankind.  But  Dickens  read  little,  and  thought  less,  of 
Thackeray's  later  work  ;  and  once,  when  I  was  speaking 
of  the  ruthless  strictures  of  the  Saturday  Revieio  on  "Lit- 
tle Dorrit,"  Thackeray,  agreeing  with  me  in  the  main, 
added,  with  that  strange,  half-humorous,  half-serious  look, 
"though,  between  ourselves,  ray  dear  Yates,  'Little  D.' 
is  d d  stupid." 

Of  course,  Thackeray  knew  perfectly  well  that  Dickens 
was  advising  me  in  all  my  movements  in  this  matter,  that 
he  had  publicly  espoused  my  cause  at  the  General  Meet- 
ing, and  had  resigned  his  seat  on  the  Committee  on  ac- 
count of  my  treatment  by  that  body  ;  but  the  subject  was 
never  discussed  in  any  way  between  the  two  men  until 
late  in  the  autumn  of  this  same  year. 

In  November,  Dickens,  returning  to  town  after  an  ab- 
sence of  some  months,  heard  from  me  that  the  writ  in  my 
action  Avas  about  to  be  served.  He  expressed  to  me,  I 
dare  say  for  the  fiftieth  time,  his  conviction  that  the  Gar- 
rick  Club  Committee  had  no  right  to  interfere  in  the  mat- 
ter, but  at  the  same  time  reiterated  his  recommendation 
that  it  should  be  accommodated  without  legal  proceedings 
and  without  public  scandal.  Upon  this,  two  letters  passed 
between  him  and  Thackeray.  I  asked  Dickens  for  these 
letters,  and  his  reply  was  :  "As  the  receiver  of  my  letter 
did  not  respect  the  confidence  in  which  it  addressed  him, 
there  can  l)e  none  left  for  you  to  violate.  I  send  you 
what  I  wrote  to  Thackeray  and  wliat  he  wrote  to  me,  and 
you  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  print  the  two.  I  am,  of 
course,  your  authority  for  doing  so." 

"TnvlHtock  JIoiiop,  TnviRtock  Square,  London,  W.C. 
"  Wc'(Ine»(liiy,  2Hh  November,  1S58. 
"My  peak  TiiACKKHAY, — Willioiit  ii  wonl  of  |>rL'lu(lc  I  wisli  this  note  to 
revert  to  a  subject  on  which  I  s.iid  six  words  to  you  :it  the  AthciiaMini 
w  hen  I  hist  saw  you. 


MY  "DIFFICULTY"  WITH  THE   GARRICK  CLUB.       245 

"  Coming  home  from  my  country  work,  I  find  Mr.  Edwin  James's  opin- 
ion taken  on  this  painftil  question  of  the  Garriek  and  Mr.  Edmund  Yates. 
I  find  it  strong  on  the  illegality  of  the  Garriek  proceeding.  Not  to  com- 
plicate this  note  or  give  it  a  formal  appearance,  I  forbear  from  copying 
the  opinion ;  but  I  have  asked  to  see  it,  and  I  have  it,  and  I  want  to 
make  no  secret  from  you  of  a  word  of  it. 

"  I  find  Mr.  Edwin  James  retained  on  the  one  side ;  I  hear  and  read  of 
the  Attorney-general  being  retained  on  the  other.  Let  me,  in  this  state 
of  things,  ask  you  a  plain  question. 

"  Can  any  conference  be  held  between  me,  as  representing  Mr.  Yates, 
and  an  appointed  friend  of  yours,  as  representing  you,  with  the  hope  and 
purpose  of  some  quiet  accommodation  of  this  deplorable  matter  which 
will  satisfy  the  feelings  of  all  concerned  ? 

"  It  is  right  that,  in  putting  this  to  you,  I  should  tell  you  that  Mr. 
Yates,  when  you  first  wrote  to  him,  brought  your  letter  to  me.  He  had 
recently  done  me  a  manly  service  I  can  never  forget,  in  some  private  dis- 
tress of  mine  (generally  within  your  knowledge),  and  he  naturally  thought 
of  me  as  his  friend  in  an  emergency.  I  told  him  that  his  article  was  not 
to  be  defended ;  but  I  confirmed  him  in  his  opinion  that  it  was  not  rea- 
sonably possible  for  him  to  set  right  what  was  amiss  on  the  receipt  of  a 
letter  couched  in  the  very  strong  terms  you  had  employed.  When  you 
appealed  to  the  Garriek  Committee  and  they  called  their  General  Meeting, 
I  .said  at  that  meeting  that  you  and  I  had  been  on  good  terms  for  many 
years,  and  that  I  was  very  sorry  to  find  myself  opposed  to  you ;  but  that 
I  was  clear  that  the  Committee  had  nothing  on  earth  to  do  with  it,  and 
that  in  the  strength  of  my  conviction  I  should  go  against  them. 

"  If  this  mediation  that  I  have  suggested  can  take  place,  I  shall  be 

heartily  glad  to  do  my  best  in  it — and  God  knows  in  no  hostile  spirit 

towards  any  one,  least  of  all  to  you.     If  it  cannot  take  place,  the  thing 

is  at  least  no  worse  than  it  was ;  and  you  will  burn  this  letter,  and  I  will 

burn  your  answer.  Yours  faithfully, 

"  Charles  Dickens. 
"To  W.  M.  Thackeray,  Esq." 

"  3G  Onslow  Square,  26th  November,  1858. 

"  Dear  Dickens, — I  grieve  to  gather  from  your  letter  that  you  were  Mr. 
Yates's  adviser  in  the  dispute  between  me  and  him.  His  letter  was  the 
cause  of  my  appeal  to  the  Garriek  Club  for  protection  from  insults  against 
which  I  had  no  other  remedy. 

"  I  placed  my  grievance  before  the  Committee  of  the  Club  as  the  only 
place  where  I  have  been  accustomed  to  meet  Mr.  Yates.  They  gave  their 
opinion  of  his  conduct  and  of  the  reparation  which  lay  in  his  power. 
Not  satisfied  with  tlieir  sentence,  Mr.  Yates  called  for  a  General  Meeting; 
and  the  meeting  which  he  had  called  having  declared  against  him,  he 
declines  the  jurisdiction  which  he  had  asked  for,  and  says  he  will  have 
recourse  to  lawyers. 

"  You  say  that  Mr.  Edwin  James  is  strongly  of  opinion  that  the  conduct 
of  the  Club  is  illegal.     On  this  point  I  can  give  no  sort  of  judgment ;  nor 


246  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

can  I  conceive  that  the  Club  will  be  frightened,  by  the  opinion  of  any 
lawyer,  out  of  their  own  sense  of  the  justice  and  honor  which  ought  to 
obtain  among  gentlemen. 

"Ever  since  I  submitted  my  case  to  the  Club  I  have  had,  and  can  have, 
no  part  in  the  dispute.  It  is  for  them  to  judge  if  any  reconcilement  is 
possible  with  your  friend.  I  subjoin  the  copy  of  a  letter  which  I  wrote 
to  the  Committee,  and  refer  you  to  them  for  the  issue. 

"  Yours,'  etc., 

"  W.  M.  Thackeray.* 

"ToC.  D10KBN8,  Esq." 

{Enclosed  in  the  foregoing.) 

"  Onslow  Square,  Nov.  6,  1858. 

"Gentlemen,  —  I  have  this  day  received  a  communication  from  Mr. 
Charles  Dickens,  relative  to  the  dispute  which  has  been  so  long  pending, 
in  which  he  says  : 

" '  Can  any  conference  be  held  between  me,  as  representing  Mr.  Yates, 
and  any  appointed  friend  of  yours,  as  representing  you,  in  the  hope  and 
purpose  of  some  quiet  accommodation  of  this  deplorable  matter  which 
will  satisfy  the  feelings  of  all  parties  ?' 

"  I  have  written  to  Mr.  Dickens  to  say  that,  since  the  commencement  of 
this  business,  I  have  placed  myself  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Commit- 
tee of  the  Garrick,  and  am  still,  as  ever,  prepared  to  abide  by  any  deci- 
sion at  which  they  may  arrive  on  the  subject.  I  conceive  I  cannot,  if  I 
would,  make  the  dispute  once  more  personal,  or  remove  it  out  of  the 
court  to  which  I  suljrnitted  it  for  arbitration. 

"  If  you  can  devise  any  peaceful  means  for  ending  it,  no  one  will  be 
better  pleased  than 

"  Your  obliged  faithful  servant, 

"  W.  M.  THACKERAT.t 

"To  the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club." 

So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  never  heard  that  the  Com- 
mittee took  any  steps  whatever  in  regard  to  this  com- 

*  The  original  draft  of  this  letter,  in  Thackeray's  handwriting,  is, 
strange  to  say,  in  my  possession.  It  was  given  me,  years  after  it  was 
written,  by  a  friend,  who  found  it  with  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  Thack- 
erayana  which  he  purchased  at  a  sale. 

t  John  Forstor,  in  his  "  Life  of  Cliarlcs  Dickens,"  alludes  to  this  mat- 
ter as  a  "  small  estrangement,  hardly  now  worth  mention,  even  in  a  note." 
This  is  all  very  well ;  but  the  estrangement  was  complete  and  continuous, 
and  Dickens  and  Thackeray  never  exchanged  but  the  most  casual  conver- 
Bation  nfterwanls.  And  most  certainly  at  the  time  no  one  was  more  ener- 
getically offended  with  Thackeray  (lian  John  Forster  himself.  I  perfectly 
well    remember    his    riige    when    Dieliens  .showed   him    the   lett(!r   of   tiic 

2tUh  November,  and   how  he  buint  out   with,  "He  be  d d,  with  his 

'  your.-^,  etc.  1'  " 


MY  "DIFFICULTY"   WITH  THE  GAERICK  CLUB.       247 

raunication.     Within  a  few  weeks  the  legal  action  was 
abandoned  on  my  part,  and  the  aif  air  was  at  an  end. 

Such  is  the  history,  with  nothing  extenuated  nor  aught 
set  down  in  malice,  of  a  most  important  event  in  my  life  ; 
whether  the  result  was  for  good  or  ill  I  am  wholly  unable, 
as  I  said  before,  to  decide.  Its  importance  prevents  its 
being  in  any  way  slurred  over,  and  I  have  told  it  in  full 
with  every  detail. 

I  have  told  it,  not  to  vindicate  myself — for  no  one  can 
see  more  clearly  than  I  do  the  silliness  and  bad  taste  of 
the  original  article — nor,  most  assuredly,  to  cast  any  slur 
upon  Mr.  Thackeray's  memory  ;  for  I  firmly  believe  that, 
had  he  lived,  he  would  have  been  led  to  acknowledge  that 
the  severity  of  my  punishment  was  out  of  proportion  to 
the  oifence  committed. 

I  have  told  it  that  that  portion  of  the  public  which  is 
interested  in  literary  squabbles  may  be  rightly  informed 
as  to  the  extent  of  my  offence  ;  and  that  those  who  bear 
my  name  may  rest  assured  that  the  act,  which  has  been  so 
frequently  referred  to  and  so  bitterly  punished,  was  one 
for  which — though  they  may  deplore  the  thoughtlessness 
which  prompted  it,  and  the  obstinacy  with  which  it  was 
persisted  in — they  can  have  no  real  reason  to  blush. 


248  FIFTU  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  X. 

DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM. 

1858-1872. 

In  September,  1858,  when  the  Garrick  episode,  though 
not  finally  closed,  so  far  as  the  lawyers  were  concerned, 
had  virtually  been  brought  to  an  end  by  the  vote  of  the 
General  Meeting  expelling  me  from  the  Club,  I  went  for 
my  autumnal  holiday  to  Seaton,  a  sea-side  village  in  Dev- 
on, on  the  borders  of  Dorsetshire,  which  had  been  discov- 
ered, as  a  place  combining  plenty  of  the  picturesque  with 
thorough  rest  and  quiet,  by  my  friend  William  Fenn  the 
artist,  who  usually  acted  as  our  pioneer  in  such  matters. 
Discovered,  I  may  say  ;  for  though  Seaton  is  now  a  thriv- 
ing watering-place,  with  its  railway-station,  its  esplanade, 
and  its  red  cliffs  dotted  with  villas  and  terraces,  it  was 
then  a  primitive  village,  inaccessible  either  by  railway  or 
public  coach,  and  only  to  be  reached  by  driving  from 
Bridport :  almost  unknown  and  wholly  unvisited  ;  but 
with  its  lovely  views,  fresh  air,  and  perfect  peace,  the 
exact  spot  for  a  tired  Londoner  in  search  of  repose  both 
of  body  and  mind. 

We  were  a  family  party,  arriving  by  coach,  which  I  had 
chartered  at  IJridport  —  my  mother,  ourselves,  and  our 
children — and  we  settled  down  at  the  little  Baths  House, 
which  almost  stood  in  the  sea,  and  gave  ourselves  up  to 
enjoyment.  There  were  lovely  walks  and  drives,  visits  to 
the  romantic  fishing  and  lace -niaking  —  not  without  a 
touch  of  smuggling  —  \illage  of  Beer,  potterings  about 
with  Fenn  on  his  sketeliing  expeditions,  and  a  stay  for  a 
few  days  with  my  friend  Mr.  Henry  Webster,  then  in- 
liabiting  Shute  House,  near  (^olyton,  a  few  miles  off,  where 
among  our  feUow-guests  was  the  present  Master  of  the 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  240 

Rolls,  who  was  making  his  way  at  the  Bar,  but  who  had 
not  then  arrived  at  the  dignity  of  Q.C. 

It  was  at  Seaton  that  I  first  explained  to  my  mother 
what  had  happened  to  me  in  connection  with  the  Garrick 
Club.  Living  very  much  out  of  the  world  as  she  did, 
she  had  heard  nothing  of  it,  and  knowing  how  much  she 
would  be  distressed,  I  had  not  the  heart  to  tell  her,  though 
I  fully  felt  the  necessity  of  doing  so  ;  but  I  was  in  the 
habit  of  receiving  at  Seaton  the  weekly  numbers  of  a  new 
publication,  the  Welcome  Guest,  of  which  more  anon,  where 
were  then  appearing  Mr.  Sala's  articles,  "  Twice  Round  the 
Clock,"  and  I  took  advantage  of  an  allusion  to  me  which 
was  made  in  one  of  these  essays  to  explain  the  whole 
matter  to  her.* 

*  Here  is  tlie  allusion :  "  The  great  Mr.  Polyphemus,  the  novelist,  is 
bidden  to  the  Duke  of  Sennacherib's,  and  as  he  rolls  to  Sennacherib  House 
in  his  brougham,  meditates  satiric  onslaughts  on  '  Tom  Garbage '  and 
'  Young  Grubstreet ' — those  Tom  Thumb  foes  of  his — in  the  next  num- 
ber of  the  Pennsylvanians.  Mr.  Goodman  Twoshoes  is  reading  one  of  his 
own  books  to  the  members  of  the  Chawbacon  AtlienaBum,  and  making,  I 
am  delighted  to  hear,  a  mint  of  money  by  the  simple  process.  Goldpen, 
the  poet,  has  taken  his  wife  and  children  to  Miss  P.  Horton's  entertain- 
ment ;  Bays,  the  great  dramatist,  is  sitting  in  the  stalls  of  the  Pontoppi- 
dan  Theatre,  listening  with  rapt  ears  to  the  jokes  in  his  own  farce ;  and 
Sclwyn  Cope,  the  essayist,  is  snoring  snugly  between  the  sheets,  having  to 
rise  very  early  to-morrow  morning,  in  order  to  see  a  man  hanged.  And 
where  are  the  working  men  of  literature,  the  conscripts  of  the  pen,  doomed 
to  carry  Brown  Bess  for  sixpence  a  day  all  their  lives  ?  Where  are  Gar- 
bage and  Grubstreet  ?  In  the  worst  inn's  worst  room,  with  racing  prints 
half  hung,  the  walls  of  plaster  and  the  floors  of  sand,  at  once  a  deal  ta- 
ble, but  stained  with  beer,  sits  Garbage  playing  four-handed  cribbage  with 
an  impenitent  hostler,  a  sporting  man  who  has  sold  the  fight,  and  a  pot- 
boy who  is  a  returned  convict  ?  Sits  he  there,  I  ask,  or  is  he  peacefully 
pursuing  his  vocation  in  country  lodgings  ?  And  Grubstreet,  is  he  in  some 
murky  den,  w-itli  a  vulture's  quill  dipped  in  vitriol,  inditing  libels  upon  the 
great,  good,  and  wise  of  the  day  ?  Wonder  upon  wonders,  Grubstreet 
sits  in  a  handsome  study,  listening  to  his  wife  laughing  over  her  crochet- 
work  at  Mr.  Polyphemus's  last  attack  on  him,  and  dandling  a  little  child 
upon  his  knee !  Oh,  the  strange  world  in  which  we  live,  and  the  post  that 
people  will  knock  their  heads  against !" 

And  again,  in  the  same  periodical,  in  writing  of  clubs,  "  G.  A.  S."  says  : 
"I  fear  the  awful  committee,  with  a  dread  complacency,  can  uuclub  a  man 
for  a  few  idle  words  inadvertently  spoken,  and  blast  his  social  position 
for  an  act  of  harmless  indiscretion." 

11* 


250  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

The  Welcoj7ie  Guest,  in  which  these  admirable  essays — 
now  in  their  Heaven  knows  how  many  hundredth  edition 
— originally  appeared,  was  started  by  Mr.  Henry  Vizetelly 
in  the  spring  of  1858,  and  was  one  of  the  most  excellent 
of  clieap  magazines.  In  it  appeared,  in  serial  form,  an  ex- 
cellent translation,  I  believe  by  Mr.  J.  V.  Bridgman,  of 
Gustave  Frej^ag's  novel,  "  Debit  and  Credit ;"  a  capital 
romance,  "Under  a  Cloud,"  by  Messrs.  Frederick  and 
James  Greenwood  ;  many  of  Mr.  Sala's  best  stories  and 
essays,  besides  those  already  mentioned,  including  a  very 
laughable  one — it  was  in  the  time  of  Mr.  Rarey — called, 
"  How  I  tamed  Mrs.  Cruiser,"  Mr,  Vizetelly  being  the 
editor,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  Mr.  Sutherland  Ed- 
wards and  Mr.  Augustus  Mayhew  were  among  the  con- 
tributors ;  and  there  were  clever  novelettes,  stories,  and 
poems  by  various  hands.  The  sub-editing  was  excellently 
done  :  certain  pages  were  avowedly  supplied  by  the  scis- 
sors, but  these  weapons  were  plied  with  such  taste  and 
judgment  as  to  render  their  product  not  the  least  interest- 
ing portion  of  the  miscellany. 

In  the  second  year  of  its  existence  the  Welcome  Guest 
was  purchased  by  Mr.  Maxwell,  and  by  him  issued  at  an 
advanced  price  in  a  different  shape,  and  under  the  editor- 
ship of  Robert  Brough,  and  without  the  illustrations,  but 
with  much  the  same  staff  of  authors. 

My  dramatic  work,  which,  in  collaboration  with  Herbert 
Harrington,  had  been  so  successful,  afforded  me  employ- 
ment from  time  to  time.  For  the  first  season  of  Miss 
Louisa  Swanborough's  management  of  the  Strand  Theatre 
Ave  wrote  a  broad,  bustling  farce,  turning  on  the  advent- 
ures of  a  cheap  pliotograplier,  and  called  "Your  Likeness, 
One  Shilling  ;"  while  the  last  piece  produced  at  the  Prin- 
cess's Theatre  under  Mr,  Charles  Kean's  management  was 
from  our  pen.  It  was  played  after  the  revival  of  "  Henry 
V,,"  and  had  its  effect  in  somewliat  lightening  the  spirits 
of  the  audience  before  their  departure.  The  manage- 
ment, and  apparently  the  i)ublic,  were  thoroughly  satisfied 
with  it ;  it  was  pronounced  by  the  press  to  be  "  extremely 
neat,"  with  dialogue  "written  witli  smartness  beyond  the 
average,"  and  it  was  certainly  excellently  acted.     In  the 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  261 

present  days  of  a  genuine  heroine-worship,  with  recollec- 
tions full  upon  us  of  Beatrice,  Viola,  Olivia,  and  Camma,  it 
seems  odd  to  read  in  connection  with  this  slight  comedi- 
etta that  "Miss  Ellen  Terry  is  worthy  of  a  special  word 
of  praise  for  the  spirit  and  point  with  which  she  played 
the  part  of  a  youthful  groom  or  tiger." 

For  the  opening  of  the  new  Adelphi  Theatre,  erected 
on  the  site  of  the  little  building  with  which  my  name  had 
been  so  long  connected,  I,  at  Mr.  Webster's  request,  wrote 
an  introductory  sketch.  I  have  forgotten  all  about  it 
now,  save  that  it  was  a  dialogue  in  verse,  introducing  all 
the  members  of  the  company,  with  special  reference  to 
them,  their  position,  and  peculiarities  ;  and  that  on  the 
first  night  the  whole  effect  of  this  was  marred  through 
the  crass  stupidity  of  Mr.  Paul  Bedford,  who  did  not 
know  one  line  which  had  been  set  down  for  him,  and  who, 
to  my  horror,  adopted  an  improvisation  of  his  own,  begin- 
ning, "  Stop  the  cart,  stop  the  cart,  dear  kids,  stop  the  cart! 
Let  old  Paul  have  something  to  say  to  you." 

Also,  in  collaboration  with  Harrington,  I  wrote  an  enter- 
tainment for  Mr.  George  Case,  a  well-known  musical  man 
and  player  of  the  concertina,  who  retired  from  the  orches- 
tra on  his  marriage  with  a  Miss  Grace  Egerton,  a  pretty 
and  uncommonly  sprightly  and  clever  little  actress,  who 
ought  to  have  done  better  things. 

In  buying  a  pair  of  horses  from  a  dealer,  the  experienced 
purchaser  is  generally  aware  that  he  will  become  the  owner 
of  a  good  animal  and  a  bad  one,  and  the  writer  of  enter- 
tainments for  a  married  couple  is  very  often  in  an  analo- 
gous position.  In  the  present  instance  we  soon  found 
tliat  Mr.  Case  could  only  be  intrusted  as  feeder  to  his  Avif c ; 
but  that  the  lady's  pluck,  energy,  and  talent  enabled  her 
to  undertake  anything  we  chose  to  give  her.  There  were 
two  or  three  "bits"  of  character  in  which  she  reminded 
me  strongly  of  Mrs.  Keeley ;  and  a  song  which  I  wrote  for 
her,  full  of  patriotic  clap-trap,  which  she  sang  in  the  char- 
acter of  a  Volunteer  at  the  close  of  the  entertainment,  in- 
variably brought  down  the  house. 

For  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  Volunteer  movement, 
which  was  causing  a  stir  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 


252  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

of  the  land,  and  in  which  I  had  the  pleasure  of  taking  aii 
active  though  subordinate  part.  In  such  a  movement  it 
would  have  been  unpardonable  if  the  Government  officials 
had  not  been  early  and  largely  represented,  and  the  Civil 
Service  Rifle  Regiment,  with  the  Prince  of  Wales  for  its 
honorary  colonel.  Viscount  Bury  for  its  colonel,  and  with 
two  Post  -  office  comjjanies  in  its  ranks,  was  speedily  en- 
rolled, having  Somerset  House  for  its  head-quarters.  One 
of  the  Post-office  companies  had  for  its  captain  a  gentle- 
man than  whom  no  one  has  more  largely  contributed  to 
the  honor  in  which  the  service  is  held,  and  than  whom 
there  is,  I  suppose,  no  more  efficient  Volunteer  officer — I 
allude  to  Lieutenant  -  colonel  Du  Plat  Taylor,  now  com- 
manding the  49th  (Post-office)  Middlesex.  My  colleague 
Harrington  commanded  the  other  company ;  and  though 
he  was  reported  to  have  seen  service  in  Spain  under  Sir 
de  Lacy  Evans,  his  military  gifts  were  not  equal  to  his 
dramatic  genius.  I  was  his  ensign;  and  I  think  the  same 
might  be  said  of  me.  Nor  do  I  think  that  the  other  liter- 
ary gentlemen  who  held  commissions  in  the  regiment — 
Mr.  Tom  Taylor  in  the  Whitehall  company,  and  Mr.  W.  S. 
Gilbert  in  one  of  the  Somerset  House  companies  —  were 
particularly  distinguished  for  their  drill. 

The  first  meeting,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  the 
Post-office  companies,  took  place  on  the  8th  of  December, 
'59,  and  our  first  muster  for  drill  was  a  week  later,  on  the 
15th,  when  we  met  at  the  Barber  Surgeons'  Hall  in  Monk- 
well  Street,  at  the  back  of  the  Post- office,  which  had  been 
kindly  j)laced  at  our  disjtosal.  When  the  weather  grew 
brighter,  and,  our  numbers  increasing,  we  required  more 
space,  we  were  permitted  to  drill  in  the  ground  of  the 
Charter-house,  which  is  a  short  distance  from  the  Post- 
office  ;  and  there,  under  the  tuition  of  a  smart  sergeant 
and  a  long  corporal  of  the  Coldst reams,  one  of  whom  bade 
us  to  "  Slialloo  humps,"  while  the  other  entreated  us  to 
"  Shoolah  hice,"  we  went  through  our  evolutions  before 
a  limited  audience. 

The  boys  were  never  ]»resent  —  they  had  gone  liome; 
but  tlie  Poor  Brethren  of  tlie  Cliarter-liouse,  I'lionias  New- 
come's  colleagues,  came   creej)ing   round   in   their   black 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  263 

gowns,  gazing  at  the  intruders  in  astonishment.  "  Codd 
Colonel"  was  among  them;  for,  after  looking  on  for  a 
few  minutes,  he  stole  away,  and  when  he  returned  I  saw 
that  he  had  affixed  his  Waterloo  medal  on  his  faded  coat, 
and  his  bearing  was  once  again  upright  and  martial.  The 
worthy  head  -  master  of  Charter-house,  Archdeacon  Hale, 
took  an  interest  in  us,  would  come  and  watch  us  drill,  and 
I  think  on  one  occasion  devoted  a  sermon  to  the  further- 
ance of  the  cause,  which  progressed  with  but  little  let 
or  hinderance. 

In  its  earliest  days  a  thoughtless  sketch  in  Punch  supplied 
the  youthful  population  Avith  the  sarcastic  cry  of  "  Who 
shot  the  dog?"  with  which  the  Volunteers  were  for  a 
long  time  chaffed  on  their  public  appearances,  and  much 
cynical  wit  was  expended  upon  us.  One  regiment,  pos- 
sessing a  brownish  -  gray  uniform  with  red  facings,  was 
known  as  the  "pauper  lunatics  with  their  throats  cut." 
A\"e,  the  Post-office  companies,  were  once  turned  into  hor- 
rible ridicule  by  a  small  and  preternaturally  sharp  boy, 
who,  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  crowd  as  we  marched 
by,  amid  expressions  of  admiration,  hit  the  fatal  blot 
by  exclaiming,  in  a  shrill  key,  "Ain't  they  all  of  a  size 
neither !"  which,  it  is  needless  to  say,  we  were  not.  Sto- 
ries were  invented  of  Volunteer  colonels  on  the  line,  of 
march,  after  frantically  exclaiming,  "  Right  wheel !  left 
Avheel !"   and   having   got   their   men   horribly   clubbed, 

ended  by  roaring  out,  "  D n  it,  turn  up  Fetter  Lane  !" 

and  the  members  of  the  new  force  were  general  victims 
of  chaff  and  fun. 

Still  we  prospered.  On  the  Vth  of  March,  18G0,  the 
Queen  held  a  levee  in  St.  James's  Palace,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  receiving  the  officers  of  the  newly -formed  rifle 
corps,  which  I  attended.  Her  Majesty's  courtesy,  doubt- 
less well-intentioned,  was  much  minimized  by  a  snub  re- 
ceived from  the  always  agreeable  Lord  Chamberlain's 
department,  in  a  notice  to  the  effect  that  attendance  at 
this  levee  "  was  not  to  count  as  a  presentation  to  the 
Queen."  It  was  reckoned  that  about  two  thousand  five 
hundred  Volunteer  officers  passed  before  her  Majesty,  rep- 
resenting an  effective  force  of  seventy  thousand  men. 


254  riFTY  TEARS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

On  the  2'2cl  June  following,  about  twenty -one  thou- 
sand Volunteers — fifteen  thousand  belonging  to  the  me- 
tropolis and  six  thousand  to  the  provinces — were  reviewed 
in  Hyde  Park  by  the  Queen,  who  was  accompanied  by 
the  Prince  Consort  and  the  King  of  the  Belgians,  then 
her  guest.  It  was,  I  remember,  a  tremendously  hot  and 
fatiguing  day,  for  we  were  on  the  ground  early,  though 
the  Queen  and  party  did  not  arrive  till  four  o'clock,  and 
drove  along  to  the  extreme  left  of  the  line  of  the  Volun- 
teers on  the  Bayswater  Road,  and  thence  along  the  whole 
front  to  the  extreme  right  at  Albert  Gate.  Her  Majesty 
then  took  up  her  station  in  the  royal  stand,  erected  about 
the  middle  of  Park  Lane,  and  the  entire  mass  of  Volun- 
teers marched  past  in  companies.  When  all  had  passed, 
and  returned  to  their  original  position,  the  line  advanced 
in  battalion  columns,  and  at  a  given  signal  burst  into 
vociferous  cheers  for  her  Majesty.  It  was  a  grand  day 
and  a  fine  sight,  but  pleasanter,  I  should  say,  to  the  spec- 
tators than  to  the  actual  performers. 

The  whole  of  this  year  (1860)  was  desperately  wet  and 
cold  and  cheerless.  We  had  drills  and  field-days  and 
brigade-days,  inspections  in  the  Park,  work  on  Wimbledon 
Common,  combinations  with  other  regiments  in  various 
suburbs,  and  I  have  a  recollection  of  being  generally  wet 
through  on  most  occasions  ;  but  very  few  of  us  suffered 
in  health,  and  undoubtedly  the  "movement"  aroused  a 
great  spirit  of  camaraderie  among  us.  Nothing  that  I 
liave  known  has  ever  done  so  much  to  weld  together  and 
bring  into  unison  the  various  departments  of  the  Civil 
Service.  Among  other  things  we  had  amateur  perform- 
ances, in  aid  of  our  band  fund,  I  think,  or  some  other 
patriotic  institution,  wliich  were  triumpliantly  successful. 

An  original  drama,  calK-d  "  A  Lesson  for  Life,"  had  been 
specially  written  for  us  by  Tom  Taylor  ;  the  female  char- 
acters M'ere  filled  by  professional  ladies,  and  we  had  the 
advantage  of  an  excei)tionally  charming  heroine  in  Miss 
Kate  Terry.  I  never  saw  so  excellent  a  performance  by 
amateurs.  Mr.  Robert  ]\Iorrisson  of  Somerset  House  was, 
in  appearance  and  in  talent,  scarcely  to  be  distinguished 
from    Mr.  William    Farren  ;    Messrs.    l)n    I'Int    Taylor, 


DESK,  STAGE,  AXJJ  PLATFORM.  255 

Angell,  Hood,  and  Dewar  afforded  invaluable  aid.  A 
liigh  official  in  the  Treasury  represented  a  college  tutor 
to  the  life.  The  part  of  Oppenhardt,  a  Jev,',  was  original- 
ly intended  by  Tom  Taylor  for  me ;  but  I  declined  it,  my 
time  being  so  much  engaged  in  attendance  on  my  mother, 
who  was  then  seriously  ill,  and  I  contented  myself  by 
representing  one  Basewitz,  a  foreign  swindler,  who  was 
only  seen  in  the  first  act.  I  also  wrote  a  rhymed  address 
for  the  occasion,  which  was  pointedly  delivered  by  Mrs. 
Stirling. 

I  held  my  position  as  ensign  in  the  Civil  Service  regi- 
ment for  about  two  years,  when  I  found  that  the  time 
required  for  the  proper  discharge  of  its  duties  encroached 
seriously  upon  my  other  work.  From  it  I  obtained  good- 
fellowship,  healthy  exercise,  and,  I  trust,  a  certain  amount 
of  popularity,  besides  gaining  the  material  for  a  series  of 
articles  called  the  '•  Grimgribber  Rifle  Corps,"  which  had 
quite  a  little  success  in  All  the  Year  Round. 

This  year,  1860,  to  me  in  many  respects  important,  al- 
ways remains  in  my  mind  surrounded  by  mournful  memo- 
ries, for  in  it  I  lost  one  of  those  dearest  to  me  in  the  world 
and  several  old  friends,  Albert  Smith  among  them.  On 
Albert's  return  from  China  in  the  late  autumn  of  '58  I 
had  noticed  a  decided  difference  in  his  health  and  spirits. 
He  who  had  never  known  a  finger-ache  was  constantly 
complaining  —  the  heat  in  China  had  played  the  deuce 
with  him,  he  said ;  he  had  travelled  too  quickly ;  he 
wished  he  had  contented  himself  with  his  Swiss  holiday, 
etc.,  and  left  the  Eastern  trip  for  another  year.  The  fact 
was  that  he  had  conceived  the  idea  of  going  to  China, 
and  finding  therein  the  subject  for  a  new  entertainment, 
by  noticing  the  speed  at  which  my  "  mail  journey  "  {vide, 
pp.  72-74)  had  been  undertaken ;  but  he  forgot  that 
everything  had  been  specially  prepared  for  me  at  Govern- 
ment expense,  and  that  my  duties  were  ended  on  reaching 
home.  I  had  had  no  reason  for  keeping  my  mind  active 
in  search  of  "  subjects  "  during  my  journey,  and  no  enter- 
tainment to  write  at  my  journey's  end. 

Albert  had  always  been  a  little  intolerant  with  people 
of  whom  he  did  not  know  much,  but  he  was  now  brusque 


256  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

and  almost  brutal.  He  decidedly  refused  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  any  one  whom  a  common  friend  might 
wish  to  present.  "  "Who  is  he  ?"  "  What  has  he  done  ?" 
"I  don't  want  to  know  him — I  hate  all  strangers" — these 
were  his  frequent  cries,  and  one  had  constantly  to  bear  in 
mind  what  an  excellent  fellow  he  really  was,  and  what  a 
valuable  friend  he  had  been,  to  keep  the  proper  seal  on 
one's  lips  under  his  irritation.  At  last  a  small  tiff  was 
inevitable  :  Albert  had  chosen  to  quarrel  with  a  common 
i'riend,  whom  I  thought  he  had  used  very  badly.  I  said 
nothing,  however,  on  the  subject  to  him,  and  nothing 
would  have  occurred  had  he  not  heard  that  this  person 
was  going  to  dine  with  me  on  my  birthday,  while  he  was 
not  invited.  He  then  wrote  to  me  an  unpleasant  letter, 
saying  that,  as  I  preferred  other  people's  society  to  his, 
it  were  best  I  should  see  no  more  of  him.  This  letter, 
severing  our  old  relations,  I  refrained  from  answering, 
and  I  saw  nothing  of  him  for  many  months. 

During  the  interval  he  liad,  at  the  close  of  his  enter- 
tainment, married  INIiss  Mary  Kceley,  and  gone  on  his  usu- 
al autumn  trip  to  Chamouni,  AVhen  London  was  filling 
again  in  the  autumn,  Mrs.  Albert  Smith,  an  old  friend  of 
my  wife's,  came  to  see  her.  There  was  no  reason,  Albert 
said,  that  they  should  be  estranged  ;  but  I  did  not  meet 
him  until  at  a  ball  in  the  winter,  whore,  entering  the  re- 
freshment-room after  a  dance,  I  found  him  standing  at 
the  buffet.  He  looked  round  and  caught  my  eye,  hesi- 
lated  an  instant,  then  advanced  with  outstretched  hand: 
"  Let's  have  a  glass  of  wine  together,  old  fellow,"  he 
said  ;  and  our  little  quarrel  was  over,  never  to  be  re- 
newed. 

I  had  heard  of  Albert's  illness,  and  was  not  surprised 
at  finding  liiin  looking  aged  and  worn.  He  had  fainted 
(»n  the  2-\<\  of  tlie  jjrcvious  month  (December)  in  the  mid- 
dle of  his  entertainment,  had  to  finish  it  abruptly, and  was 
for  more  than  a  fortnight  at  home  under  the  doctors' 
liands.  In  spite  of  their  strict  warning,  as  he  then  told 
nic,  lie  had  recommenced  his  work  a  few  evenings  before, 
on  the  loth,  and,  as  he  assure*!  me,  found  himself  none  the 
worse.      i-'roin   thai   lime    I  saw  liini    ri(<iueiit  1  y,  and  real- 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  257 

ized  that  lie  was  a  changed  man  ;  the  hard  work,  the  late 
hours,  and  free  living,  spread  over  a  long  series  of  years, 
were  beginning  to  show  their  effect — the  seeds  of  disease 
were  in  him  and  shooting  apace.  I  think  he  knew  this, 
and  tried  to  conquer  his  feelings. 

He  had  made  additions  to  the  house  which  he  had  re- 
cently purchased  at  North  End,  Walham  Green,  and  gave 
frequent  dinners  and  entertainments  there  ;  he  tried  to 
resume  his  old  boisterous  spirits,  but  to  me  they  never 
seemed  to  be  genuine.  He  was  very  anxious  that  his 
wife  should  be  much  with  mine,  and  that  we  should  be 
frequently  at  his  house  ;  but  my  mother  was  lying  ill  at 
the  time,  and  as  I  had  to  go  to  her  at  Kentish  Town  ev- 
ery day,  I  could  not  visit  him  often.  The  last  time  I  saw 
him  was  on  Thursday,  the  3d  of  May.  On  the  previous 
night  we  had  gone  down  with  him  after  his  entertainment, 
and  supped  and  slept  at  his  house.  As  I  smoked  my  cigar 
he  talked  long  and,  for  him,  earnestly,  expressing  his  per- 
fect hai)piness  in  the  ti'anquillity  and  repose  of  his  home, 
his  constant  anxiety  to  get  back  to  it,  and  his  wonder  that 
he  had  been  able  for  so  long  to  lead  a  celibate  and  useless 
life.  The  last  words  he  spoke  to  me  were  when  bidding 
me  farewell  the  next  morning  in  a  little  arbor  on  his 
lawn.  He  said,  "When  you  come  down  next  week  this 
place  will  be  lovely,  for  the  pink  may  will  then  all  bo 
out."  That  pink  may  first  showed  its  blossom  on  the  day 
of  his  death. 

On  Saturday,  the  12th,  though  suffering  at  the  time  from 
cold,  he  walked  through  the  pouring  rain  from  the  Eg)' p- 
tian  Hall,  after  giving  his  entertainment,  to  the  Garrick 
Club.  On  arriving  there  he  was  wet  to  the  skin,  but  in- 
stead of  returning  home  he  sat  down  before  a  fire  and 
dried  his  clothes  without  removing  them.  An  attack  of 
bronchitis  immediately  set  in  ;  it  increased  in  virulence 
as  the  week  progressed  ;  he  was  compelled  to  cut  out  the 
songs  in  his  entertainment,  and  though  he  would  not 
abandon  his  work,  called  in  medical  aid. 

On  Monday,  the  21st,  he  was  so  prostrated  that  the  gen- 
.eral  practitioner  in  attendance  positively  forbade  his  at- 
tempting to  lecture,  and  Albert,  with  great  reluctance, 


258  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

suffered  an  apologetic  note  to  be  issued.  The  congestion 
of  the  hmgs  increased,  and  on  the  next  day  Dr.  Burrows 
was  called  in,  but  it  was  too  late.  On  Tuesday  evening 
the  poor  patient  became  insensible.  He  continued  in  that 
state  throughout  the  night,  and  at  half  -  past  eight  on 
Wednesday  morning,  the  23d  May,  while  all  London  was 
making  every  preparation  for  the  great  national  holi- 
day, the  Derby  Day,  Albert  Smith  peacefully  and  calmly 
breathed  his  last,  in  the  presence  of  his  wife  and  brother. 

The  news  came  upon  me  with  a  great  shock.  ^ly  wife 
had  heard  from  time  to  time  from  Mrs.  Albert  Smith  of 
her  husband's  illness,  but  the  letters  gave  no  indication 
of  its  dangerous  character.  Immediately  on  hearing  of 
the  death,  within  a  few  hours  after  its  occurrence,  we 
went  off  to  Walham  Green,  to  tender  all  possible  consola- 
tion and  assistance  to  the  young  widow  ;  and  at  the  door 
I  met,  for  the  first  time,  one  who  was  afterwards  to  be- 
come a  great  friend  of  mine — the  Reverend  J.  M.  Bellew, 
by  whom  Albert  had  been  married  not  twelve  months 
before. 

The  funeral  took  place  on  the  following  Saturday  at 
Brompton  Cemetery,  and  Albert  Smith  was  placed  in  the 
grave  where  three  years  before  his  fatlier  had  been  in- 
terred. The  mourners  were  his  brother  Arthur,  his  fa- 
ther-in-law (Robert  Keeley),  his  executor  (Mr.  Arthur  Pratt 
Barlow),  his  solicitor  (Mr.  Edward  Draper)  ;  the  only 
other  old  friends  i)resent  being  Richard  Lane,  A.R.A., 
and  myself.  It  was  Albert's  constantly  expressed  wish 
tliat  his  funeral  should  be  of  the  simplest  and  most  pri- 
vate character,  and  this  wish  was  strictly  adhered  to. 

A  far  heavier  trial  was  in  store  for  me.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  the  year  my  mother  gave  us  to  understand  that 
she  had  reason  to  fear  her  health  was  breaking,  and  that 
she  was  threatened  witli  a  serious  illness.  During  our  ab- 
sence from  town  late  in  the  previous  autumn,  after  the 
l)ir(li  of  my  youngest  son,  my  <'l<lest  boy  had  been  on  a 
visit  to  his  grandniolher  at  her  little  house  in  Kentish 
Town.  She  had  an  idea  that  in  lier  endeavors  to  please 
and  amuse  the  child  she  had  over-exerted  herself ;  but  it 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  259 

was  evident  that  she  was  out  of  health,  and  that  an  opin- 
ion other  than  that  of  her  ordinary  medical  attendant 
should  be  obtained.  Dr.  Robert  Lee,  of  Savile  Row,  was 
accordingly  called  in  consultation,  and  his  opinion,  pri- 
vately expressed  to  me,  gave  me  occasion  for  the  gravest 
fear. 

That  was  in  February,  and  the  dear  sufferer  very  short- 
ly afterwards  took  to  her  bed,  never  to  leave  it  alive.  For 
six  long  months  she  lingered,  suffering  at  times,  I  fear, 
intense  agony,  but  bearing  it  always  with  wonderful  calm- 
ness and  Christian  resignation.  During  that  six  months 
I  think  I  scarcely  missed  one  day  in  visiting  her,  some- 
times coming,  to  her  amusement,  in  my  Volunteer  uni- 
form, though  towards  the  last  I  always  changed  my  dress 
— I  did  not  seem  like  myself,  she  would  say,  in  that  unac- 
customed garb.  She  passed  away  on  the  night  of  the 
30th  August  —  one  of  the  best  and  most  devoted  of 
women. 

In  the  same  year,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-two,  died 
Robert  Brough  ;  and  I  also  lost  a  kind  friend  and  early 
employer  in  Herbert  Ingram,  M,P,  for  Boston,  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  Illustrated  London  JVews,  who  perished  in 
the  Lady  Elgin,  an  American  steamer  which  was  run  into 
during  an  excursion  trij)  on  Lake  Michigan,  when  three 
hundred  of  her  passengers  were  drowned. 

My  literary  work  was  being  continued  all  this  time  with 
undiminished  assiduity  at  the  Daily  Neios,  wliere,  on  the 
death  of  good  old  William  Weir,  the  position  of  editor  had 
been  filled  by  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Thomas  Walker,  who 
was  accustomed  to  the  duties  of  the  office,  and  was  an  in- 
dustrious and  painstaking  writer.  I  was  doing  plenty  of 
w^ork,  too,  for  the  Illustrated  Times,  where  Mr.  Henry  Vize- 
telly  invariably  meted  out  strict  justice  towards  me,  unin- 
fluenced by  the  advocacy  of  two  or  three  warm  admirers 
of  Mr.  Thackeray,  who  were  on  the  staff,  and  who  were 
eager  for  my  dismissal, 

I  have  a  note  in  my  diary  for  the  11th  February, 
1860,  to  the  effect  that  I  went  with  Oxenford  to  the  St. 
James's  Theatre  to  witness  the  first  performance  of  a  bur- 


260  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

lesque  called  "Dido."  It  was  said  to  be  the  work  of  a 
novice — a  young  gentleman  named  Francis  Cowley  Bur- 
nand,  who  was  believed  to  be  still  at  Cambridge.  Frank 
Talfourd  came  into  the  box  during  the  course  of  the  even- 
ing, and  there  gave  utterance  to  two  of  his  most  ridiculous 
jokes.  It  was  a  bitter  night,  and  some  one  was  complain- 
ing of  the  cold.  "  You  never  wear  a  great-coat,  Frank  ?" 
I  said  to  him,  inquiringly.  "No,"  he  replied,  "I  never 
tcm .'"  Diu-ing  the  performance  a  trireme  filled  with  sol- 
diers appeared  at  the  back  of  the  stage.  "  What  is  that  ?" 
said  Frank,  looking  at  it  as  it  rocked  violently.  "  That," 
said  I,  referring  to  the  bill,  "  is  a  Roman  galley."  "  Seems 
to  me  more  buoyant  than  galley,"  said  the  inveterate 
punster. 

I  wrote  also  many  essays  and  stories  and  poems  for  AU 
the  Year  Bonnd,  the  Welco7ne  Guest,  and  a  well-started  but 
short-lived  i)eriodical,  Everijhoilifs  Journal,  which,  I  think, 
appeared  about  that  time.  In  this  year,  too,  I  undertook 
for  Messrs.  Routledge  the  task  of  cutting  down  the  "  Life 
of  Charles  Mathews  the  Elder,"  written  by  his  widow, 
and  originally  appearing  in  three  or  four  large  volumes, 
and  reproducing  it  with  notes  in  a  more  handy  shape. 
There  was  much  good  in  the  book,  overlaid  by  a  good 
deal  of  irrelevant  matter,  and  I  think  I  succeeded  in  turn- 
ing out  a  readable  volume,  though  I  understood  that  old 
INIrs.  Mathews,  the  original  biographer,  who  was  tlien  still 
living,  never  forgave  me  for  having  laid  my  sacrilegious 
liand  on  her,  in  one  sense  at  least,  niagmim  02ms. 

Immediately  after  my  mother's  death  I  went  for  rest 
and  change  for  a  few  weeks  at  Scarborongli;  and  on  my 
return  tlience,  the  first  business  call  I  liad  was  on  Oc'tol)er 
1st  from  Mr.  Maxwell,  who  came  on  a  very  iin])()r(.ant 
matter.  In  the  jtrevious  year  Messrs.  Smith  &  ElcK-r  had 
opened  up  an  entirely  new  vein  in  periodical  literature  by 
the  establishment  of  the  Com /i ill  M/n/azine,  at  the  i)ricc  of 
one  shilling,  under  the  editorshij)  of  Thackeray.  I  remem- 
ber, when  I  first  read  tlie  ])rospectus,  being  rash  enough 
to  think  that  the  great  Titmarsh,  having  been  so  success- 
ful in  his  antiseptic  treatment  of  me,  might  possibly  pos- 
sess sufficient  magnanimity  to  induce  him  to  regard  me 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  261 

with  a  little  indulgence,  and  I  wrote  and  forwarded  to  him, 
without  remark,  a  little  poem,  which  I  may  say  now  was 
as  good  as  most  magazine  verse,  and  was  suitable  for  his 
opening  number.  It  came  back  by  return  of  post,  with  a 
line  from  his  secretary,  who  was  "  desired  by  Mr.  Thack- 
eray to  return  the  enclosed." 

The  Gornliill  Magazine  was  an  enormous  success,  and 
Mr,  Maxwell's  idea  was  to  bring  out  a  somewhat  similar 
periodical  at  the  same  j^rice — without  illustrations,  indeed, 
but  giving  more  pages  of  literary  matter  as  an  equivalent. 
My  old  friend  George  Augustus  Sala  had  undertaken  the 
editorship,  and  had  expressed  a  wish,  in  which  Mr.  Maxwell 
concurred,  that  I  should  act  as  assistant  or  working  editor. 
Liberality  was  the  order  of  the  day ;  an  office  was  to  be  en- 
gaged, good  terms  offered  to  contributors,  the  magazine 
was  to  be  largely  advertised,  and  everything  was  to  be 
done  to  promote  its  success. 

I  was  delighted  to  accept  the  offer ;  and  as  the  first 
number  was  to  be  issued  on  the  1st  of  December,  I  began 
to  set  about  my  preparations  at  once.  I  had  some  diffi- 
culty in  getting  a  serial  story,  for  the  leading  lights  of 
those  days  were  most  of  them  engaged,  and  Sala  had  2>rom- 
ised  that  within  a  very  short  time  he  would  begin  a  novel 
on  his  oAvn  account,  from  which  we  naturally  expected 
great  things.  At  last  I  obtained  from  a  lady  who  had 
never  written  previously  for  the  press,  and  who  was  the 
wife  of  a  provincial  clergyman,  a  by  no  means  brilliant, 
but  quite  sufficiently  interesting  "  make  -  Aveight  "  story, 
without  mucli  incident,  but  remarkably  well  written,  and 
giving  a  curious  insight  into  Quaker  life,  the  author  hav- 
ing in  her  youth  belonged  to  that  community.  It  was 
called  "  For  Better,  for  Worse,"  and  perhaps  may  be  best 
described  as  Trollope-and-milk. 

In  our  first  number,  which  was,  like  most  first  numbers, 
nothing  like  so  good  as  its  successors,  Sala  broke  ground 
with  an  instalment  of  "  Travels  in  the  County  of  Middle- 
sex," a  series  of  sparkling  essays,  which  I  wonder  have 
never  been  reprinted;  Blanchard  Jerrold  wrote  on  the 
"  Father  of  the  French  Press ;"  John  Oxenford  contrib- 
uted an  essay  on  the  "Kalewala;"  W.  S.  Austin  sent  some 


262  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON    LIFE. 

curious  "Notes  on  Circumstantial  Evidence;"  and  Sala, 
influenced  by  kindness  rather  than  a  strict  adherence  to 
his  duty,  insisted  on  my  accejiting  a  long  poem  by  a  Mr. 
Stigand  called  "  The  Northei'n  Muse ;"  otherwise  we  were 
strong  iu  verse.  Mr.  F.  D.  Finlay,  who  had  never,  to  my 
knowledge,  perpetrated  poetry  before  or  since,  sent  me  a 
remarkably  pretty  poem  of  a  serious,  not  to  say  religious, 
tendency,  called  "Always  with  Us  ;"  and  there  were  con- 
tributions from  two  acknowledged  poets,  whose  acquaint- 
ance I  had  recently  made.  One  was  Mortimer  Collins,  of 
whom  I  had  heard  frequently,  M^hom  I  had  read  much,  but 
whom  I  had  never  seen.  It  was  j^lain  also  that  he  had 
never  seen  me,  for  during  the  Thackeray  controversy  he 
had  written  of  me  in  a  Plymouth  paper,  of  which  he  Avas 
the  correspondent,  as  a  "  pert  little  London  sparrow."  I 
asked  him  to  call  upon  me  in  reference  to  the  projected 
Temple  Bcw,  and  when  I  rose  f i-om  my  chair,  and  he  found 
that  my  proportions  were  almost  as  massive  as  his  own — 
though  official  etiquette  precluded  ray  decorating  them 
with  a  velvet  coat  and  a  red  tie — he  looked  greatly  aston- 
ished. I  at  once  reminded  him  of  his  description  of  me, 
over  which  Ave  roared,  and  shook  hands  and  remained  close 
friends  to  his  death. 

To  our  first  number  he  contributed  one  of  his  most  de- 
lightful lyrics,  "  Under  the  Cliffs  by  the  Sea,"  the  first 
lines  of  which — 

"White-throated  maiden,  gay  be  tliy  carol 
Under  the  cliffs  by  the  sea; 
Plays  the  soft  wind  with  thy  dainty  apparel — 
Ah,  but  tliou  Ihiuk'st  not  of  mc" — 

still  remain  in  my  mind. 

The  other  was  by  Mr.  Robert  Buchanan,  who  came  to 
my  house  in  tlie  Abbey  Road,  to  which  I  had  just  re- 
moved, one  evening  in  November,  with  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction from  W.  II.  Wills,  who  liad  previously  spoken  to 
me  about  him.  Mr.  linchanan  bad  recently  arrived  from 
S(;otIaTi(l  to  seek  bis  fortune  in  London,  and  had  grratly 
impressed  Mr.  Wills,  not  mcri'ly  by  bis  undoubted  talents, 
l)Ut  by  the  earnestness  and  gravity  of  his  demeanor.     He 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  263 

wrote  a  series  of  poems  in  our  new  magazine,  the  first  one 
having  "  Temple  Bar"  for  its  subject,  and  became  a  con- 
stant contributor. 

In  gathering  contributions  for  our  first  number,  I  im- 
proved my  acquaintance  with  another  man  with  whom 
I  became  very  intimate — the  Rev.  J.  M.  Bellew.  I  had 
seen  him,  as  before  mentioned,  at  the  time  of  Albert 
Smith's  death  ;  but  had  no  further  communication  with 
him  until  I  went  to  live  in  the  Abbey  Road,  Avhich  was 
close  by  the  church  of  which  he  was  then  incumbent. 
Sala  particularly  wished  to  have  Mr.  Bellew's  name  at 
that  time  among  his  contributors,  and  I  accordingly  called 
on  "  my  minister,"  and  induced  him  to  send  us  an  account 
of  an  episode  in  his  recent  travellings  in  the  East,  which 
he  called  "  Over  the  Lebanon  to  Baalbek." 

My  small  contribution  to  the  first-born  was  a  sonnet  on 
Garibaldi. 

"The  Seven  Sons  of  Mammon,"  by  George  Augustus 
Sala,  w3s  commenced  in  No.  2,  taking  the  place  of  honor, 
the  editor  contributing  in  addition  a  further  instalment  of 
his  "  Travels  in  Middlesex,"  and  a  very  remarkable  article, 
"Annus  Mirabilis,"  commenting  on  the  various  events  of 
the  past  expired  year.  Robert  Buchanan  made  his  first  ap- 
pearance as  a  prose  writer  with  an  essay  on  Robert  Iler- 
rick.  There  was  a  story  by  Sutherland  Edwards  ;  a  sci- 
entific paper  on  "  Light ;"  a  lyric  by  Mortimer  Collins  ;  a 
descriptive  paper,  "  The  Houseless  Poor,"  by  myself  ;  and 
a  poem,  five  and  a  half  pages  long,  "  Italia  Rediviva,"  by 
the  unconquered  Stigand. 

The  magazine  made  its  mark,  and  grew  better  every 
month.  It  kept  me  constantly  occupied ;  for  Sala  had  so 
much  literary  and  journalistic  work  to  do  that,  beyond 
giving  his  name  to  the  cover  and  the  sui^ervision  to  the 
printed  sheets,  he  left  most  of  the  detail  to  me.  I  used  to 
go  to  him  from  time  to  time  at  the  chambers  which,  with 
a  friend,  he  then  occupied  in  Clement's  Inn — I  always  used 
to  think  that  the  names  on  the  dooi-,  Mr.  George  Augustus 
Sala,  Mr.  Rudolph  Gustavus  Glover,  Mere  highly  sugges- 
tive of  a  farce — and  to  which  admission  was  obtained  by 
throwing  a  penny  through  the  letter  -  box  of  the  always 


264  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LQ^E. 

sported  oak,  and  show  him  what  I  proposed,  in  which  he 
almost  invariably  acquiesced. 

Blanchard  Jerrold,  Charles  Kenney,  Sutherland  Ed- 
wards, H.  W.  Sotheby,  who  wrote  an  interesting  series  of 
papers  on  ancient  classical  novelists;  Mortimer  Collins, 
who,  in  addition  to  his  lovely  lyrics,  wrote  a  series  of  de- 
lightful prose  papers  descriptive  of  his  rambles  through 
different  English  counties  ;  Edward  Wilberforce,  Pro- 
fessor D.  T.  Ansted,  who  was  our  regular  "  scientist ;" 
W.  S.  Austin,  Oxenford,  Buchanan,  and  Mrs.  Brotherton, 
teller  of  excellent  stories,  were  among  our  early  contribu- 
tors. 

In  1861  I  made  the  acquaintance,  soon  to  ripen  into 
friendship,  of  Alfred  Austin,  who  had  just  then  made  his 
success  with  his  satire,  "  Seasons,"  and  he  wrote  many 
pretty  poems  of  a  lighter  calibre  in  our  pages.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  same  year  ajjpearcd  in  Temple  Bar  a  story 
called  "  The  Mystery  of  Fernwood,"  the  first  contribution 
of  one  whose  work  perhai)s  was  more  useful  than  that  of 
any  writer  in  it — Miss  M.  E.  Braddon. 

I  do  not  "  set  up  "  for  a  prophet,  or,  like  the  gentleman 
immortalized  by  Dr.  Johnson's  reproof,  I  should  speedily 
have  to  set  down ;  but  I  am  always  pleased  to  remember 
that  I  had  sufficient  editorial  sagacity  to  detect  latent 
genius  in  the  first  production  of  Miss  Braddon's  ever  sub- 
mitted to  my  notice.  I  was  writing  tlie  framework  of, 
and  generally  selecting  and  editing  the  stories  intended 
fur,  a  Christmas  number  of  the  Welco)ne  Guest,  when  I 
was  asked  by  ISIr.  ]\[axwelj,  the  pro])rietor,  who  had  sup- 
plied me  with  a  ])ik'  of  MS.,  M'hetluT  I  had  discovered 
any  tiling  s)»ocial  among  them.  I  told  hiiu  that  they  were 
all  of  the  ordinary  calibre  save  one,  a  story  with  an  ex- 
traordinary title,  "('hristmas  at  Rilston  Kagstar,"  which, 
clearly  told,  was  full  of  new  and  genuine  fun.  Tliis,  I 
afterwards  discovered,  was  one  of  ]\Iiss  Braddon's  earliest 
literary  efforts.  Her  next  contribution  to  Temple  Bar 
was  some  "  In  Menioriam  "  verses  on  the  Prince  Consort's 
diath  in  December,  1H61,  and  in  tlie  next  month  she  gave 
a  decided  fillip  to  our  circJilation  and  our  renown  with  the 
oiMiiiiig  chapters  of  "vVurora  Floyd." 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  265 

For  many  months  Temple  Bar  engroHscd  moBt  of  my 
attention,  but  I  found  time  to  string  together  and  publish, 
under  the  title  "After  Office  Hours,"  a  number  of  reprinted 
essays,  stories,  and  poems  which  I  had  unearthed  from  vari- 
ous periodicals.  In  the  autumn  ray  wife  and  I,  accompa- 
nied by  Alfred  Austin,  went  on  a  long  tour  in  Switzerland, 
through  the  lierji  jsc  Oberland  and  to  Chamouni,  where, 
at  the  Hotel  de  Londres,  we  had  the  rooms  formerly  oc- 
cupied by  poor  Albert  Smith,  to  whose  memory  a  tablet 
had  recently  been  erected  in  the  village  church  by  his 
brother  Arthur,  who  himself  died  in  the  October  of  this 
year.  In  this  trip  I,  too,  was  very  nearly  losing  my  life. 
The  weather  had  been  extremely  hot ;  we  had  ridden  on 
mule -back  from  Chamouni  to  Martigny,  a  journey  of 
twelve  hours,  and,  at  its  conclusion,  I,  who  had  been  ailing 
and  "  out  of  sorts "  for  some  days,  felt  seriously  ill,  and 
went  to  bed.  I  suppose  I  must  have  had  some  slight  touch 
of  sunstroke,  with  gastric  fever  and  certain  indications  of 
cholera. 

Clear-headed  Alfred  Austin  telegraphed  at  once,  indi- 
cating the  symptoms,  to  the  English  i>hysician  at  Geneva, 
begging  him  to  hurry  to  my  aid ;  but  many  hours  neces- 
sarily elapsed  before  he  could  arrive,  during  which  I  lay 
in  fearful  agony,  becoming  weaker  and  weaker,  and  desper- 
ately alarming  the  village  medico,  who  was  probably  a 
farrier,  who  for  all  my  convulsions  proposed  internally  a 
tisane,  and  externally  a  cataplasm. 

But  there  was  hope  in  the  sound  of  Dr.  Metcalfe's  cheery 
voice,  and  encouragement  in  the  light  of  his  pleasant  eye. 
For  twelve  hours  after  his  arrival  I  was  hovering  between 
life  and  death  ;  but  under  Providence  his  skill  and  the 
devoted  attention  of  my  two  companions  turned  the  scale, 
and,  though  as  weak  as  a  child  for  days,  and  unable  to 
stand,  I  recovered. 

In  the  late  autumn  I  made  my  first  appearance  as  a 
public  lecturer  in  the  assembly-rooms  of  the  Eyre  Arms 
Tavern,  under  the  auspices  of  the  St.  John's  Wood  Liter- 
ary Society,  of  which  I  was  a  member.  The  subject  was 
a  literary  one  —  comments  on,  and  descriptions  of,  the 
work  of  various  poets  and  prose  writers  who  seemed  to 

12 


266  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

me  to  be  scarcely  held  in  sufficient  repute,  with  extracts 
from  their  writings — and  delivered  with  as  much  dramatic 
force  as  I  could  command.  It  was  a  success ;  and,  finding 
I  had  secured  a  new  means  of  money-making,  I  wrote  an- 
other lecture,  much  more  di-amatic  in  its  character,  called 
"  Modern  Society,"  which  I  first  delivered  at  the  Bays- 
water  Athenaeum,  and  which  was  speedily  in  great  de- 
mand. 

Those  were  very  pleasant  days  in  the  Abbey  Road, 
where  we  had  for  near  neighbors  and  intimate  friends 
Charles  Fechter  and  J.  M.  Bellew.  The  former,  who  had 
made  an  extraordinary  impression  on  his  first  appearance 
in  England  as  Ruy  Bias,  a  performance  which,  as  far  as 
my  judgment  is  concerned,  has  never  been  excelled  on  any 
stage,  had  created  a  perfect  furore  with  his  Hamlet,  his 
conception  of  the  character  having  much  mellowed  and 
improved  under  the  advice  of  our  other  friend  Bellew. 
Fechter  was  living  in  the  Marlborough  Road,  close  by  me, 
with  his  wife  and  two  children,  and  an  odd  entourage, 
the  principal  component  parts  of  which  were  Gassier  the 
singer,  a  Dr.  Caplin,  and  an  ex  -  fencing  master  whose 
name  I  forget.  Fechter  was  singularly  abstemious  in 
those  days,  eating  little  and  drinking  nothing  but  weak 
claret -and -water,  though  he  had  a  good  cellar,  and  was 
especially  })roud  of  some  1820  port,  which  he  was  always 
offering  to  his  friends  ;  a  man  of  singular  fascination, 
sweetness,  and  amiability,  though  intolerant  of  humbug, 
and  savage  where  he  disliked.  His  keenness  of  percep- 
tion and  ])ronij)titude  of  action  were  in  curious  contrast 
witli  liellew's  easy,  kindly  inability  of  negation  and  laissez- 
alter  in  the  conduct  of  bis  affairs. 

I  do  not  think  there  was  ever  a  man  more  thoroughly 
misunderstood  by  the  majority  of  peo|»le,  even  by  those 
who  thought  tliey  knew  him,  tlian  John  Montesquieu 
liillew.  He  generally  passed  for  a  sharp,  shrewd,  schem- 
ing man  of  the  world,  always  on  the  lookout  to  better  his 
position,  and  not  very  scrupulous  as  to  the  means;  much 
of  a  lady-killer,  and  not  a  link'  of  a  charlatan. 

There  were  never  n»ore  mistaken  notions  than  all  of 
tlu'se,  tliough  I  am  bound  to  state  that  they  were  mostly, 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  267 

if  not  entirely,  due  to  the  man  himself.  Never  was  a  man 
80  wholly  and  completely  his  own  enemy  as  Bellew;  never 
did  a  man  so  persistently  and  yet  so  unintentionally  do  the 
wrong  thing  in  the  wrong  place.  He  was  not  much  given 
to  mixing  with  professional  divines,  but  had  he  been 
he  would  have  reserved  his  strongest  and  most  piquant 
story  for  his  bishop's  ear.  Half  the  stories  told  to  his 
detriment  were  not  seen  in  that  light  by  himself,  and, 
though  perfectly  false,  were  left  uncontradicted,  owing  to 
a  curious  feeling  which  left  him  somewhat  flattered  by 
being  considered  the  hero  of  them.  He  was  not  very 
firm,  or  very  strong-minded,  or  very  decisive ;  but  he  was 
frank,  kindly,  generous,  and  hospitable,  a  kind  and  affec- 
tionate husband,  an  excellent  friend,  and  a  good  father.  I 
lived  in  close  intimacy  with  him  for  years,  and  in  his  best, 
freest,  and  happiest  days  during  his  ministry  at  St.  Mark's; 
later,  when  he  was  gradually  slipping  into  what  he  called 
the  Charles  Honeyman  line  at  Bedford  Chapel ;  latest  of 
all,  when  he  had  renounced  his  sacred  calling  and  abjured 
his  old  faith,  when  he  had  christened  himself  "Poetry  on 
Wheels,"  and  was  perpetually  engaged  in  travelling  in 
England  and  America  in  delivering  his  recitations.  Some 
of  his  friends  blamed  him,  and  some  pitied  him ;  but  to  a 
few  good  and  staunch  and  true,  who  knew  the  man,  his 
affectionate  disposition,  his  warm  generous  heart,  he  was 
lovable  to  the  last.  By  those  his  memory  is  still  cherished 
in  the  full  feeling  that  they  could  far  more  readily  have 
spared  a  more  strictly  well-regulated  person. 

It  used  to  be  said  that  Mr.  Bellew  was  a  born  actor,  but 
in  the  days  when  I  knew  him  he  was  too  portly  and  too 
unwieldy  to  have  shone  on  the  stage.  Undoubtedly  he 
was  never  seen  to  such  advantage  as  in  the  pulpit,  where 
his  figure  loomed  large  and  his  aspect  was  commanding  ; 
his  ecclesiastical  millinery  was  perfect,  and  he  wore,  when 
preaching,  cuffs  of  French  cambric — such  as  used  to  be 
a  portion  of  a  widow's  dress  in  the  days  Avhen  widows' 
mourning  was  in  vogue — round  his  plump  white  hands. 
I  do  not  think  I  ever  heard  a  voice  of  such  magnificent 
timbre,  and  he  knew  exactly  how  and  when  to  employ 
every  note  in  its  gamut.     He  never  read  anything  so  well 


268  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

as  the  Church  service  —  a  straightforward,  appreciative 
bit  of  magnificent  declamation,  free  from  "intoning"  or 
sing  -  song  of  any  kind.  In  his  ordinary  readings  he 
was  best  in  Shakspeare,  whom  he  worshipped  and  knew 
thoroughly  ;  his  "  comic  recitations  "  were  painful  exhi- 
bitions. 

When  I  first  knew  Mr.  Bellew  he  was  at  the  height  of 
his  popularity  :  his  church  in  Hamilton  Terrace,  a  very 
large  one,  was  crammed,  seats  were  at  a  premium,  and 
crowds  of  persons  lined  the  aisles.  Then  all  seemed  sud- 
denly to  go  wrong  :  he  quarrelled  with  the  vicar  whom  he 
represented,  and  with  many  of  those  parishioners  who  had 
been  his  earnest  supporters.  He  gave  up  the  incumbency, 
and  rented  Bedford  Chapel,  in  New  Oxford  Street,  which 
was  conducted  very  much  on  the  Sherrick-cum-Honeyman 
lines.  A  few  of  the  faithful  followed  their  pastor  from 
the  pleasant  groves  of  the  Evangelist  even  to  that  dirty 
slum,  and  for  a  time  the  place  prospered ;  but  only  for  a 
time.  Then  Mr.  Bellew  was  one  of  the  first  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  an  Act  of  Parliament  that  he  had  worked  hard 
to  get  passed,  by  which  he  was  at  liberty  to  unfrock  him- 
self ;  and  no  sooner  was  this  done  than  he  joined  the 
Church  of  Rome,  a  proceeding  which  undoubtedly  alien- 
ated many  of  the  friends  who  had  been  very  useful  and 
true  to  him.     He  died  in  1874. 

As  a  man  of  business  Fechter  was  energetic,  trust- 
worthy, and  far-seeing  ;  as  a  stage-manager,  beyond  com- 
pare. Mr.  Augustus  Harris  ^j^re,  who  was  reckoned  excel- 
lent in  this  lino,  admitted  Fechtor's  superiority,  and  could 
not  account  for  it.  I  once  heard  him  say  that  it  would 
be  worth  while  to  give  him  a  large  salary  to  do  nothing 
but  sit  on  the  stage  during  the  reliearsal  and  produce  the 
piece. 

Fechter  took  me  greatly  into  his  confidence  in  his  busi- 
ness matters,  in  many  of  whicli,  stu^li  as  the  making  of 
engagements,  etc.,  1  was  able  to  be  of  use  to  him.  The 
following  letter  will  show  the  earnestness  of  the  man, 
l)oth  as  fnend  and  manager  :  . 

"  J'ai  111  la  luttre  de  L ,  inoii  cher  Edmund,  et  j'avoue  que  je  n'y 

coiiipruuds  ricu  !     C'cat  k  dire,  si : 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  260 

"  Je  comprends  que  malgr6  mon  grand  d6sir  de  ramener  L au  Prin- 
cess, et  de  le  replacer  k  son  propre  Hgno,  il  m'y  faut  renoncer. 

"  Je  peux  tr^s  bien  pai/er  de  ma  poche  pour  parfaire  les  appointements 
que  demande  voire  ami,  niais  je  ne  puis  forcer  un  directeur  k  faire  une 
chose  quejc  ne  ferais point  a  sa  place:  laisser  le  droit  absolu  ii  I'artiste  de 
refuser  les  roles  qui  lui  sont  distribu6s  est  render  tout  pouvoir  de  direc- 
tion impossible. 

"  Je  presume  que  L ne  tient  pas  k  I'affaire,  et  que  cela  le  rend  plus 

exigent  peut-etre  qu'il  ne  convient?  Je  laisse  encore  la  porte  ouverte 
jusqu'^  demain  soir,  18  Juin.  Apr^s  deinain  je  ferai  la  distribution  des 
roles,  et  il  n'y  aura  plus  k  y  revenir. 

"  Dites  bien  k  L que  ce  u'est  pas  seulementun  simple  d^sappointe- 

nient  d'artiste  que  j'eprouve,  mais  un  vrai  chagrin  d'arai.     Vous  qui  me 
connaissez,  vous  me  comprendrez  s'il  ne  me  comprend  pas. 
"  A  vous,  cher  ami,  de  tout  mon  coeur, 

"  Ch.  Fechter." 

I  have  another  reminiscence  in  connection  with  this 
portion  of  my  life.  Fechter,  wishing  to  avail  himself  of 
the  services  of  a  rising  young  actress,  who  shall  be  name- 
less, requested  me  to  arrange  the  engagement  with  her. 
After  some  preliminary  talk,  she  called  upon  me  one  day 
at  the  Post  -  office,  accompanied  by  her  father,  then  an 
actor  in  a  very  small  way.  After  we  had  settled  the 
matter,  the  father  said  to  me, 

"  You  have  a  pleasant  sinecure  here,  Mr,  Yates." 

I  mildly  hinted  that,  although  the  duties  were  not  ab- 
solutely slavery,  the  position  was  not  a  sinecure. 

"Equivalent  to  it,"  he  said,  with  a  fine  theatrical  air. 
"You  gentlemen  in  Government  offices  are  indeed  well 
off.  I  said  to  my  daughter,  as  we  walked  up  your  grand 
staircase,  '  Well,  my  dear,  your  father  would  give  up  all 
his  dreams  of  ambition,  and  be  content  to  settle  down 
here  on  a  mere  five  hundred  a  year.' " 

Whatever  his  dreams  of  ambition  may  have  been,  his 
actual  salary  probably  never  exceeded  thirty  shillings  a 
week. 

The  International  Exhibition  being  held  in  the  year 
1862,  a  portion  of  my  work  was  devoted  to  articles  de- 
scriptive of  it  and  its  contents  to  the  various  journals 
with  which  I  was  connected.  It  was  a  year  of  much 
hospitality  too,  and  one's  labors  were  considerably  inter- 
fered with  by  the  necessity  of  entertaining  or  contribut- 


270  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFR 

ing  to  the  entertainment  of  provincial  and  foreign  friends, 
by  whom  London  was  thronged.  On  the  29th  of  March 
I  made  my  debut  as  an  after-dinner  speaker,  being,  to  my 
great  astonishment,  called  upon  by  Dickens,  presiding 
over  the  banquet  in  aid  of  the  Artists'  General  Benevo- 
lent Fund,  to  return  thanks  for  the  Volunteers.  I  caused 
some  amusement,  I  remember,  by  stating  that  if  the 
sentry  then  on  guard  at  the  National  Gallery  had  been 
summoned  to  return  thanks  for  the  army  he  could  not 
have  been  more  surprised. 

In  June  my  wife  and  I,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  E.  M.  Ward, 
Fechter,  and  Bellew  paid  a  delightful  visit  to  Warwick, 
Kenilworth,  and  Stratford-on-Avon.  At  the  latter  place 
we  were  most  hospitably  entertained  by  the  vicar ;  and 
Fechter,  then  at  the  height  of  his  Hamlet  triumph,  was 
delighted  with  all  he  saw. 

In  the  spring  I  had  added  to  my  labors  by  accepting 
an  engagement  from  my  friend  Mr.  F.  D.  Finlay  to  write 
for  his  paper,  the  Belfast  N'orthern  Whig,  a  weekly  article 
called  "The  Looker-on  in  London,"  wliich  I  continued 
for  some  time. 

During  the  previous  winter,  too,  I  had  assisted  Fechter 
in  the  preparation  of  a  romantic  drama  founded  on  "  Les 
Couteaux  d'Or,"  by  Paul  F6val,  and  called  by  us  "  The 
Golden  Daggers."  The  piece  was  produced  at  the  Prin- 
cess's on  Saturday,  April  19th,  before  a  very  remarkable 
audience,  and  though  admirably  stage-managed  and  ex- 
cellently acted,  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  failure. 
The  reason  of  this  was  that  the  play  was,  in  all  probabili- 
ty, a  bad  one  ;  that  there  were  certain  incidents  in  it 
wliicli,  intended  to  be  serious,  almost  verged  upon  the 
ludicrous.  But  one  great  cause  of  the  failure  was  un- 
doubtedly tliat  the  key  of  the  plot  was  contained  in  the 
story  told  by  tlie  hero  immediately  on  the  rising  of  the 
curtain  in  the  prologue  ;  and  as  two-tliirds  of  tlie  audience 
at  that  time  had  not  arrived  at  the  theatre,  or  were  en- 
gaged in  shuffling  into  tlieir  seats,  they  heard  nothing  of 
what  was  said,  and  could  comprehend  nothing  that  fol- 
lowed. 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year  I  determined  to  attempt  to 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  271 

increase  my  income  by  launching  out  into  a  new  line. 
The  lectures  of  which  I  have  previously  spoken  had  been 
in  great  request — I  had  given  them  in  all  kinds  of  places 
and  before  all  kinds  of  audiences :  in  London,  and  the 
suburbs,  and  the  i)rovinces  ;  before  members  of  literary 
institutions  at  Islington  and  Bristol,  and  the  Beaumont 
Institute  at  Bow,  at  Fulham,  and  Dorking ;  before  the 
employes  of  large  firms,  such  as  Messrs.  Copestake,  Moore 
&  Crampton,  and  Messrs.  Shoolbred ;  before  the  cunning 
workers  in  metals  at  Colebrookdale  ;  at  neighboring  Stock- 
well  and  distant  Hull — and  it  occurred  to  me  that  as  the 
lecture,  "  Modern  Society,"  undoubtedly  possessed  a  cer- 
tain dramatic  quality,  and  as  I  myself  was  credited  with 
some  of  the  requirements  for  the  histrionic  art,  I  might 
possibly  remodel  and  extend  this  into  a  regular  entertain- 
ment. My  old  friend  Albert  Smith's  place  had  never 
been  filled — his  room  at  the  Egyptian  Hall  was  at  that 
time  actually  vacant — and  it  would,  I  thought,  be  a  great 
thing  if  I  could  adjust  his  mantle,  and  tread  in  his  suc- 
cessful footsteps.  One  shortcoming  on  my  part,  how- 
ever, immediately  suggested  itself :  a  certain  amount  of 
singing  and  playing  was  absolutely  necessary  in  such  a 
"  show,"  and  I  knew  no  note  of  music  and  had  not  a  scrap 
of  voice. 

In  this  dilemma  I  bethought  me  of  Mr.  Harold  Power, 
son  of  the  famous  Irish  comedian,  a  man  of  great  humor, 
an  excellent  singer  and  mimic,  who  had  at  one  time  held 
an  appointment  in  the  Post-office,  but  who  was,  I  believe, 
acting  in  the  provinces.  I  put  myself  into  communica- 
tion with  him  at  once,  and  made  arrangements  for  his 
joining  me  later  on.  Then  I  engaged  the  Mont  Blanc 
room  at  the  Egyptian  Hall  for  a  term,  had  it  beautifully 
decorated  under  Mr.  Beverly's  superintendence,  and  set  to 
work  to  recast,  amplify,  render  much  more  dramatic  what 
had  hitherto  been  known  as  "  Modern  Society." 

The  entertainment  as  I  finally  wrote  it  was  in  two 
parts  ;  it  was  called  "  Mr.  Edmund  Yates's  Invitations  to 
Evening  Parties  and  the  Sea-side,"  and  the  nature  of  the 
amusement  offered  may  be  gathered  from  the  title.  Per- 
haps, however,  what  the  entertainment  really  was  is  best 


272  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

explained  in  the  following  criticism  from  the  pen  of  Mr, 
John  Forster  in  the  Examiner: 

"  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  and  Mr.  Power  at  Egyptian  Kall. 

"  The  entertainment  given  by  these  gentlemen  under  the  style  of  '  Invita- 
tion to  Evening  Parties  and  the  Sea-side '  is  better  than  its  name,  which  has 
nothing  but  eccentricity  to  recommend  it.  The  entertainment  itself  is  in 
fact  so  good  that  we  predict  for  Messrs.  Yates  and  Power,  if  it  please 
them  to  remain  fellow-workers  in  this  manner,  a  success  rivalling  that  of 
the  late  Mr.  Albert  Smith  in  permanence  and  in  solidity. 

"In  the  first  place,  the  comfort  of  the  audience  is  as  carefully  respected 
as  it  was  in  the  old  Mont  Blanc  days.  There  are  no  fines  inflicted,  no  un- 
comfortable seats.  The  room  is  gayly  decorated  into  some  suggestion  of 
a  conservatory,  and  the  little  stage  is  prettily  appointed,  with  its  couple 
of  successive  .scenes — a  room,  and  a  veranda  opening  on  the  sea-shore. 

"  On  the  stage  excellent  actors,  well  remembered  and  respected  by  the 
public,  live  again  in  their  sons,  who  amuse  the  company  for  a  couple  of 
hours  by  holding  their  bright  little  mirror  up  to  social  nature  in  a  per- 
formance utterly  remote  from  staginess.  In  each  scene  the  humors  rep- 
resented are  thrown  up  in  the  natural  course  of  easy  conversation  between 
two  intimate  friends.  In  the  second  scene,  at  the  sea-side,  Mr.  Power  does 
indeed  mount  a  stool  to  telegraph  with  his  handkerchief  to  fellow-lodgers 
on  the  shore;  but  in  the  maiu  the  acting  consists  in  appearing  not  to  act; 
and  tliis  difficult  end  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  may  be  said  to  have  accomplished 
perfectly.  In  a  large  theatre  there  is  a  stress  or  breadth  of  manner  nec- 
essary to  give  effect  even  to  the  right  representation  of  naturalness,  that 
makes  art  manifest  even  in  the  most  polislied  representation  of  every-day 
life  according  to  the  way  of  the  modern  French  scliool.  In  the  little  room 
at  Egy|)tian  Hall  there  is  no  need  even  for  a  faint  touch  of  the  rouge  and 
violet  powder  of  dramatic  style,  and  Messrs.  Yates  and  Power  get  rid  of 
it  altogether.  Of  the  two  pleasant  friends,  l[r.  Yates  personates  the  more 
phlegmatic,  Mr.  Power  the  more  mercurial.  The  quiet,  unenthusiastic,  and 
absolutely  natural  manner  of  Mr.  Yates,  who  talks  at  ease  to  his  friend,  as 
if  there  were  no  audience  within  a  thousand  miles  of  him,  keeps  tlie  whole 
tone  of  the  two  hours'  talk  pleasantly  in  harmony  with  the  common  hu- 
mor of  the  audience.  Mr.  Power  never  exceeds  the  gaycty  of  ordinary  so- 
cial intercourse  in  his  vivacity ;  the  talk  is  always  amusing,  never  over- 
strained into  a  cleverness  beyond  the  bent  of  social  intercourse,  and  the 
pay  bits,  the  merry  weil-told  anecdotes,  the  liappy  snatches  of  mimicry 
grow  out  of  the  course  of  ca.sy  conversation,  and  subside  into  it  again  as 
unobtrusively  and  lightly  as  they  ought  always  to  do,  but  often  don't,  in 
actual  life. 

"  It  is  noticeable,  also,  that  while  the  cntcrtainincnt  consists  very  much 
in  talk  about  other  folks  behind  their  backs — first,  of  certain  people  who 
might  distinguish  themselves  by  divers  peculiarities  at  divers  stages  in 
the  course  of  the  formalities  of  an  evening  party ;  then  of  people  who 
make  their  peculiuritics  more  or  less  conspicuous  in  their  enjoyment  of 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  273 

the  unrestraint  of  the  sea-side — all  risk  is  avoided  of  giving  an  air  of  scan- 
dal to  the  conversation.  Nothing  could  be  more  genial  than  the  prevail- 
ing tone  of  all  the  gossip.  Even  the  lady's  doctor  may  look  without  a 
frown  at  his  own  image  as  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  presents  it  to  him  in  his 
glass ;  and  the  old  gentleman  whose  preliminary  crumbling  of  bread  on 
the  table-cloth,  and  final  embarrassment  when  he  gets  up  after  supper  to 
propose  the  health  of  the  host,  subject  to  embarrassing  asides  from  Jack 
Bagot,  the  funny  man,  might  see  without  indignation  how  Mr.  Kdnmnd 
Yates  rises  to  imitate  him  for  the  edification  of  his  friend  Mr.  Power.  As 
for  that  friend  Mr.  Power,  his  skill  as  a  mimic  seems  to  be  unbounded ; 
and  when  he  shows,  for  the  edification  of  his  friend  Mr.  Yates,  with  a  sly 
drollery  that  no  man  can  resist,  the  manners  and  voices  of  the  actors  of 
the  day,  now  imitating  Mr.  Webster,  iiuw  Mr.  Boucicault,  now  Mr.  Paul 
Bedford,  now  Mr.  Compton,  now  Mr.  Buckstone,  now  Mr.  Charles  Kean, 
the  little  house  is  kept  in  a  roar.  Messrs.  Compton  and  Buckstone  are 
wonderful  imitations,  but  the  reproduction  of  Mr.  Charles  Kean  is  a  joke 
to  scream  over.  Capital,  too,  is  Mr.  Power's  singing,  in  reply  to  a  male 
serenade  of  his  own,  of  '  Du,  du  liegst  mir  im  Ilerzen,'  in  a  sentimental 
lady's  voice. 

"  Considering  the  skill  of  these  two  gentlemen,  and  the  durable  charac- 
ter of  their  plan  of  entertainment,  which,  retaining  the  well-chosen  man- 
ner, admits  of  any  degree  of  variation  in  the  matter,  we  think  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  will  with  them,  and  not  of  power,  whether  they  will  become  as 
much  an  institution  of  the  town  as  the  town's  old  friend  Albert  Smith 
was  in  his  day." 

And  here  let  me  explain  a  certain  similarity  between 
the  first  part  of  my  entertainment  and  one  of  John  Par- 
ry's social  sketches,  produced  a  couple  of  months  later 
under  the  title  of  "  Mrs,  Roseleaf's  Evening  Party."  John 
Parry  was  an  old  and  intimate  friend  of  mine,  and  had  no 
warmer  admirer  than  myself,  and  the  subjoined  letter  will 
show  how  curiously  two  persons,  without  the  slightest 
collusion,  may  hit  upon  the  same  idea  almost  at  the  same 

time  : 

"  16  Pembridgc  Place,  December  5, 186'3. 
"  Dear  Edmund, — I  have  only  just  returned  from  the  north,  and  am 
very  glad  to  hear  from  our  friend  Frith  that  everything  looks  so  promis- 
ing for  Monday  night.  I  should  like  to  have  been  there  and  given  a  hand. 
But  I  am  glad  to  sec  by  the  Times  of  to-day  that  there  is  no  chance  of 
getting  in.  I  wanted  to  have  seen  you,  as  I  should  like  you  to  know  that, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  by  reading  the  first  part  of  your  capital  bill,  you  have 
chosen  the  subject  which  1  have  worked  into  a  song,  and  have  ready 
to  bring  out  when  I  withdraw  'Colleen  Bawn.'  It  is,  in  fact,  a  gleaning 
from  subjects  I  did  in  my  entertainment  some  years  ago.  Doubtless  the 
subject  will  not  be  treated  exactly  in  the  same  way  by  us,  mine  being 

12* 


274  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

merely  a  musical  scene,  while  yours  is  in  a  more  elaborated  form.  I  did 
not  like  your  entertainment  to  come  out  without  first  mentioning  that  we 
had  happened  to  stumble  on  the  same  subject. 

"  Hoping  to  have  an  early  opportunity  of  hearing  you,  believe  me,  with 
every  good  wish,  faithfully  yours,  John  Parry." 

We  produced  our  entertainment  on  the  8th  Decem- 
ber to  an  oveiilowing  audience  of  celebrities,  and  it  ran 
with  more  or  less  success,  but  always  on  paying  terms, 
until  the  following  May,  when  Mr.  Power,  for  whom  a 
good  mercantile  position  abroad  had  been  obtained  by  his 
friends,  was  compelled  to  leave  me.  I  could  not  go  on  by 
myself,  I  had  no  inclination  to  adopt  another  colleague, 
and — I  had  had  enough  of  it.  So  the  show  was  shut  up, 
and  my  evenings  were  again  devoted  to  literary  work. 

In  this  year  I  witnessed  the  arrival  of  the  Princess 
Alexandra  in  London,  previous  to  her  marriage  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  from  the  windows  of  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph office  in  Fleet  Street,  and  was  particularly  struck 
by  the  happy  tact  of  Lord  Alfred  Paget,  who  was  in 
immediate  attendance  on  the  newly  arrived  guest,  and 
who,  by  his  invariable  good-humor  and  pleasant  badinage, 
soothed  and  turned  aside  what  might  have  been  the  anger 
of  the  crowd  exposed  to  fearful  pressure. 

I  was  also  present  in  June  at  the  inauguration  of  the 
Albert  Memorial  in  South  Kensington,  where  the  Princess 
may  be  said  to  have  made  her  first  public  appearance,  and 
where  I  was  struck  with  the  singular  presence  of  mind 
and  easy  grace  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  then  a  very  young 
man. 

In  this  year,  too,  I  met  Lord  Cardigan  at  dinner,  and 
had  much  talk  with  him.  He  spoke  very  kindly  of  my 
uncle,  Colonel  Richard  Brunton,  with  whom  he  had  been 
intimate,  and  Major  Stone  of  the  same  regiment  (13th 
Light  Dragoons).  The  dinner  at  which  we  met  was  giv- 
en only  a  few  days  after  an  action  had  been  tried,  upon 
the  decision  of  which  Lord  Cardigan  vindicated  his  char- 
acter against  some  slur  cast  ujion  his  bravery  at  Balaclava, 
in  a  book  called  "Letters  by  a  Staflf  Officer."  The  sub- 
ject was,  of  course,  can-fully  avoided  at  the  dinner  ;  but 
I  had  a  talk   subse«|ucntly  about  the   famous  Balaclava 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  275 

charge  with  Sir  George  Womb  well,  who,  as  a  cornet  in 
the  17th  Lancers,  took  part  therein. 

Though  it  was  so  many  years  ago,  he,  of  course,  remem- 
bered every  detail  of  it.  He  had  two  horses  killed  under 
him,  was  very  nearly  taken  prisoner  by  the  Russians,  but 
managed  to  catch  a  stray  horse — there  were  many  about 
— and  rode  to  Lord  George  Paget's  Heavy  Brigade,  which 
he  saw  advancing.  He  was  close  by  Lord  Cardigan  when 
Captain  Nolan,  the  aide-de-camp,  came  with  instructions 
to  Lord  Lucan  to  charge  upon  the  guns.  Sir  George 
Wombwell  was  of  opinion  that  there  was  a  doubt  as  to 
which  guns  were  mentioned — those  on  the  heights  or  those 
in  the  valley  about  a  mile  and  a  half  away.  The  latter 
was  supposed  to  be  those  indicated,  and  the  brilliant 
charge  commenced. 

Sir  George  spoke  of  Lord  Cardigan  as  the  incarnation 
of  bravery.  He  cantered  along  at  first  about  forty  yards 
in  front  of  his  regiment,  as  though  he  were  riding  in  the 
Row  ;  he  did  not  draw  his  sword  until  he  had  made  some 
progress,  and  then  principally  with  the  idea  of  waving  the 
men  back,  who  were  pressing  upon  him.  It  is  always 
difficult,  even  in  Yeomanry  field-days,  to  prevent  a  caval- 
ry charge  becoming  a  race,  and,  of  course,  when  the  men 
saw  the  guns  in  front  of  them  and  firing  at  them,  their 
anxiety  to  get  forward  and  cut  down  the  gunners  Avas  too 
great,  so  that  the  charge  finally  became  a  pell-mell  race. 
Sir  George  Wombwell  saw  Captain  Nolan  hit  by  the  shot 
which  killed  him.  Though  killed,  the  body  for  some  lit- 
tle time  maintained  its  balance  on  the  horse,  and  was  car- 
ried past  ray  informant  Avith  its  arm  extended,  the  horse 
going  at  full  gallop.     A  minute  after  it  fell  to  the  gi-ound. 

On  the  morning  of  Christmas  -  eve  in  this  year  Mr. 
Thackeray's  servant,  going  to  call  his  master  as  usual, 
found  him  lying  dead,  with  his  hands  clasped  above  his 
head.  The  news  came  to  me  in  the  afternoon,  as  I  was 
calling  upon  a  friend  at  the  Reform  Club,  and  gave  me  a 
certain  shock,  as  forever  destroying  the  hope  which  I 
had  entertained  that  the  breach  between  me  and  the  great 
writer  might  eventually  have  been  healed.  For  many 
months  any  bitterness  which  I  may  have  at  one  time  en- 


276  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

tertained  against  him  bad  died  out,  and  when  I  treated  of 
his  loss  in  print  I  was  able  conscientiously  to  claim  my 
share  of  the  great  and  general  grief.  What  I  said  in  the 
Northern  "Whig  was  rejirinted  in  the  Daily  Telegraph,  and 
I  bad  several  letters  warmly  approving  of  my  words  from 
persons  who  at  the  time  of  the  difficulty  had  taken  keen 
interest  in  it  as  strong  partisans  on  the  Thackeray  side. 

In  the  autumn  of  1863  I  was  residing  at  Mapesbury 
House,  Willesden  Lane,  owned,  but  not  then  occupied,  by 
IMr.  John  Anderson,  the  well-known  horse-dealer  of  Green 
Street — a  capital  old-fashioned  house,  standing  in  a  large 
garden,  and  surrounded  by  a  congeries  of  stabling  and  loose 
boxes  dedicated  to  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  Mr.  Ander- 
son's highly  valuable  stock-in-trade.  There  were  also  a 
miniature  farm,  a  tan-ride  furnished  with  various  obsta- 
cles for  leaping  experiments,  a  large  staff  of  rough-riders, 
helpers,  etc.,  all  within  half  an  hour  of  Hyde  Park  Corner. 

It  was  a  deliglitful  place,  but  in  those  days  somewhat 
difficult  of  access  and  not  too  easy  to  find.  Our  friends 
used  to  come  to  great  grief  in  their  attemj)ts  to  discover 
our  whereabouts,  as  is  ludicrously  set  forth  in  the  follow- 
ing letter  from  John  Pai-ry  : 

"4  Colville  Gardens,  Bayawater,  January  2, 1864. 

"  My  DEAR  Edmund, — I  think  it  but  right  you  should  have  a  statement 
of  the  events  of  hist  evening. 

"  I  was  unfortunately  rather  late  home  from  rehearsal,  and  could  not  be 
at  the  Friths'  (who,  you  know,  were  kindly  going  to  take  me  to  your  house 
in  their  carriage)  until  twelve  minutes  past  the  half-hour  (five). 

"  I  was  of  course  sorry  to  have  lost  my  chance,  seeing  they  were  gone 
on  my  arrival  at  their  house,  and  after  ascertaining  your  whereabouts,  I 
started  in  a  cab;  and  simply  to  make  the  story  short,  I  w.as  exactly  <me 
hour  and  forty  minutes  in  that  blessed  cab! 

"  The  man  took  me  a  nmr  way  of  his  own  (!) ;  and  on  our  arrival  in  Wil- 
lesden Lane,  I  knocked  and  rang  at  three  large  gates,  but  nobody  knew 
anything  about  your  house.  It  was  bitterly  cold,  and  what  with  anxiety 
and  'the  shivers,'  I  at  lust  was  obliged  to  return  home  by  Kilburn  Gate  to 
Friths',  where  I  left  a  message  for  them  expressing  my  regret.  It  was 
now  exactly  half-past  seven,  and  I  started  in  the  cab  at  ten  to  six. 

"  You  woidd  have  pitied  me  had  you  seen  my  loneliness  and  despair. 
No  house;  no  friends;  no  dinner!  We  got  into  a  road  witliout  any  gas, 
and  three  robbers  looked  in  at  the  window ;  at  least,  I  thought  they  were 
robbers. 

"  I  kept  crying  out,  '  Take  me  beyond  the  cemetery !'     At  last  I  should 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.         2^7 

have  been  rather  pleased  if  they  had  taken  me  in  the  cemetery.  So  apolo- 
gizing  to  Mrs.  Yates  and  yourself  for  my  apparent  rudeness,  you  will  quite 
believe  it  was  not  for  want  of  perseverance  I  did  not  reach  you. 

"  Yours  ever  faithfully,  John  Parry." 

I  often  wondered  why  Fate  had  sent  me  to  live  in  a 
place  so  apparently  unsuitable  for  a  literary  man  with 
constant  engagements  in  town,  and  at  length  I  found  out. 

We  were  in  a  tolerable  strait  at  Temjile  Bar.  Some 
one  who  was  to  write  a  novel  for  us — at  this  lapse  of  time 
I  quite  forget  whom — had  sent  to  say  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  fulfil  his  promise.  I  was  in  despair,  and 
did  not  know  which  way  to  turn.  Miss  Braddon  was  im- 
possible— she  had  just  commenced  "  The  Doctor's  Wife;" 
Mr.  Sala  was  engaged  on  the  "  Confessions  of  Captain 
Dangerous,"  and  was  regularly  supplying  his  essays, 
"Breakfast  in  Bed;"  poor  Dutton  Cook's  "Trials  of  the 
Tred golds,"  though  a  very  pretty  story,  had  been  pro- 
nounced to  lack  the  necessary  power  of  holding  the  pub- 
lic, and  I  was  instructed  not  to  go  to  him.  The  proprietor 
offered  extremely  liberal  terms,  and  I  put  myself  in  com- 
munication with  Mrs.  Oliphant,  "Holme  Lee,"  Messrs. 
Whyte  -  Melville,  Shirley  Brooks,  and  George  Lawrence  ; 
but  all  were  engaged.  We  wanted  a  novel  badly,  and  in 
the  dilemma  some  one  very  near  home  suggested,  "  Why 
not  write  one  yourself?" 

Such  an  idea  had  never  entered  my  mind,  or,  if  it  had, 
had  been  summarily  dismissed  with  a  feeling  that,  though 
I  had  written  short  tales  by  the  score,  I  had  not  sufficient 
staying  power  for  a  continuous  story.  But  now  some- 
how the  idea  was  not  so  repugnant  to  me.  I  had  long 
had  certain  vague  ideas,  germinated  by  the  surroundings 
in  which  I  lived,  floating  in  my  mind,  and  I  thought  per- 
haps I  might  be  abh  to  weave  them  together.  At  all 
events,  I  told  the  proprietor  that  I  was  prepared  to  throw 
myself  into  the  breach — a  suggestion  which  he  received, 
if  without  any  expression  of  enthusiastic  delight,  at  least 
without  a  refusal.  He  named  a  modest  sum,  which  in  the 
event  of  my  succeeding  was  to  be  more,  bade  me  go  in 
and  do  my  best. 

The  truth  was,  I  had  in  my  mind  a  new  idea  for  a  new 


278  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

character  in  fiction.  There  was  living  in  those  days  a 
good  -  looking  and  very  fascinating  young  woman,  who 
rode  much  to  hounds,  and  whom  Landseer  had  painted  as 
the  "  Pretty  Horse-breaker,"  of  whom  I  knew  a  little  and 
had  heard  a  great  deal;  and  I  thought  out  a  plan  by 
which  I  could  utilize  her,  placing  her  amid  the  Mapesbury 
stables  and  tan-rides  and  all  the  surroundings  with  which 
I  was  so  familiar,  and  which  was  new  and  hitherto  un- 
trodden ground. 

If  I  had  never  lived  at  Mapesbury  I  do  not  believe  that 
I  should  have  ever  written  a  novel;  but  "local  color"  al- 
ways had  been  a  suggestion  for  an  incentive  to  my  novel- 
writing.  Thus  "  Land  at  Last,"  with  its  artist  life  and 
Bohemian  atmosphere,  had  its  origin  in  a  story  told  to 
me  by  Frith,  R.A.,  and  was  written  Avhen  I  was  in  almost 
daily  communion  with  him  and  other  brethren  of  the  brush. 
The  story  of  the  "  Forlorn  Hope  "  came  to  me  after  a  so- 
journ in  a  great  house  in  Scotland,  where  an  outbreak  of 
scarlatina  dispersed  the  party;  in  "Nobody's  Fortune" 
and  "  Castaway  "  the  action  took  place,  for  the  most  part, 
in  Devon  and  Cornwall,  in  which  counties  I  was  engaged 
on  Post-office  business  while  the  stories  were  being  writ- 
ten ;  and  the  "  Yellow  Flag  "  opens  in  the  town  of  South- 
ampton, and  with  the  scene  on  board  a  P.  and  O.  ship, 
both  place  and  action  having  been  frequently  studied  by 
me  while  staying  with  Captain  Black.  In  connection  with 
this  subject  I  may  mention  that  the  names  of  all  the  dra- 
matis  personcB  in  "  Black  Sheep "  are  those  of  personal 
friends  of  my  own,  while  in  "Wrecked  in  Port"  not  a 
character  appears  whose  surname  is  not  to  be  found  among 
the  list  of  Post-office  officials  at  the  time. 

So  I  wrote  three  or  four  cha))ter8  of  "Broken  to  Har- 
ness," and  read  them  aloud  to  the  criticism  of  my  wife 
and  my  friend  Parkinson,  then  staying  with  me.  They 
expressed  their  belief  in  the  interest  of  the  story  and  the 
goodness  of  the  style,  but  botli  agreed  that  the  sequence 
of  tlie  cliajtterM  should  \)v  altered.  This  view  being  also 
adopted  by  Alfred  Austin,  to  whom  I  read  them  immediate- 
ly after,  I  accepted  it,  made  ray  third  chapter  my  first, 
and  went  steadily  to  work.     The  first  instalment  appeared 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  279 

in  the  number  of  Temple  Bar  for  March,  1864,  and  the 
story  was  continued  from  month  to  month  for  ten  or  twelve 
numbers.  During  its  progress  I  received  great  encourage- 
ment from  the  short  criticisms  of  such  of  the  press  as  no- 
ticed periodical  literature,  and  from  the  kindly  letters  of 
Miss  Braddon,  who  wrote  to  me  several  times  in  its 
praise. 

When  the  book  appeared  in  three  volumes  I  had  no 
cause  to  complain,  for  it  was  extensively  and  very  favor- 
ably received.  The  notice  in  the  dread  Athenoium  was 
written,  as  I  afterwards  discovered,  by  the  editor,  Mr.  Hep- 
worth  Dixon,  and  said,  "It  is  a  first  novel,  and  a  better 
work  of  fiction  has  not  for  many  a  week  come  under  our 
notice."  The  Standard  mentioned  it  as  "  very  far  above 
the  average  of  the  tales  which  overload  our  table."  The 
Globe  said,  "  There  is  an  easy  cleverness,  a  pleasant  spar- 
kling increasing  to  brilliancy  at  times,  a  freshness  of  spirit 
which  makes  the  whole  thing,  from  beginning  to  end, 
delightful  reading  for  wearied  or  idle  people  ;"  and  the 
Morning  Star,  "  for  vigor  and  fidelity,"  infinitely  preferred 
my  sketches  of  life  in  a  Government  office  to  those  of  a 
brother  novelist. 

My  Pretty  Horsebreaker,  her  life  and  death,  was,  as  I 
hoped  and  almost  anticipated,  the  success  of  the  book. 
On  all  sides  I  received  the  doubtful  compliment  that  no 
one  thought  I  could  have  done  anything  so  good.  The 
Spectator  said  :  "  Mr.  Yates  has  developed  power  which,  to 
many  who  have  read  his  previous  writings,  will  be  quite 
unexpected.  They  expected,  of  course,  good,  pointed, 
salted  writing,  pleasant  to  read  even  apart  from  its  sub- 
ject, full  of  humor  and  free  of  that  affectation  of  buffoon- 
ery which  ruins  so  many  of  his  school,  but  they  hardly 
looked  for  anything  quite  so  good  as  Kate  Mellon.  The 
Pretty  Horsebreaker  —  who  despises  conventionalisms, 
makes  a  proposal  of  marriage,  cannot  become  a  lady,  yet 
is  a  good  and  pure  woman — is  almost  as  clear  to  the  read- 
er's eyes  as  if  she  had  been  photographed.  She  is  alive, 
and  so  are  most  of  the  subordinate  characters,"  etc.  The 
best  character  in  the  book,  said  the  then  existent  Press,  is 
Kate  Mellon,  "  a  fresh  face  in  the  long  gallery  of  modern 


280  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

fiction.  When  all  the  world  writes  novels,  he  must  have 
a  quick  invention  who  can  produce  something  new." 

I  sent  the  book  to  Dickens,  who  paid  me  the  compliment 
of  reading  it  at  once,  and  writing  to  me  immediately  ho 
had  read  it.  "  I  have  read  your  book  with  much  delight 
and  some  surprise,"  he  said,  "and  have  been  profoundly 
affected  by  the  last  portions  of  it.  It  has  touched  me 
deeply,  and  moved  me  to  many  tears." 

Thenceforward  it  was  plain  I  must  continue  to  write 
novels, 

Mr.  Maxwell  had  already  secured  me  to  follow  on  my 
success  in  Tanple  Bar  by  writing  a  story  for  the  same 
magazine,  the  first  chapters  of  which  were  to  appear  with- 
in a  month  or  two.  The  flattering  notices  of  "  Broken  to 
Harness  "  no  sooner  appeared  than  I  was  waited  upon  by 
Mr.  Edward  Tinsley,  senior  partner  of  the  firm  of  Tinsley 
Brothers,  who  offered  me  what  I  then  considered  large 
terms  for  a  novel  to  be  complete  in  three-volume  shape 
within  a  certain  given  and,  as  I  thought,  very  short  time. 
But  I  had  struck  a  new  vein,  my  writing  was  in  great 
demand,  and  it  was  evident  that  I  must  make  the  most  of 
the  good-fortune  which  had  unexpectedly  fallen  upon  me. 
From  that  time  until  the  end  of  1874  I  was  never  without 
a  novel  or  two  in  progress. 

The  year  previously  I  lost  ray  excellent  friend  Frank 
Smedley.  By  the  death  of  a  distant  cousin  he  had  long 
been  in  easy  circumstances,  and  after  his  father's  death 
continued  to  reside  in  the  winter  with  his  mother  in  Grove 
Lodge,  Regent's  Park,  whore  he  could  get  fresh  air  with- 
out going  beyond  the  precincts  of  his  garden,  and  where 
he  was  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  Zoological 
Gardens,  his  favorite  resort.  He  had  purchased  for  him- 
self a  charming  estate  called  Beechwood,  within  a  very 
short  distance  of  Marlow,  wlicrc  he  resided  in  tlic  summer 
months.  Late  in  April,  iHfM,  I  dined  with  him  at  (irove 
Lodge,  and  thought  him  bettor  and  l)righter  than  I  liad 
Hcen  him  for  some  long  time  When  the  other  guests  left 
the  dining-table  he  asked  iric  to  remain,  and  talked  to  me 
with  great  sjtirit  and  interest  about  the  work  on  which  I 
was  then  engager],  about  some  liorses  he  had  bought ,  about 


DESK,  STAGE,  AND  PLATFORM.  281 

his  desire  to  get  away  speedily  into  the  country  and  enjoy 
the  beauties  of  the  coming  summer,  about  a  dozen  little 
trifles,  into  all  of  which  he  entered  with  even  more  than 
his  ordinary  zest. 

I  left  him,  promising  to  return  the  next  week  and  to 
settle  an  early  date  for  visiting  him  at  Beechwood.  On 
Sunday  morning,  the  1st  May,  he  was  found  by  his  serv- 
ant, who  came  to  call  him,  in  a  state  of  stupor,  speedily 
followed  by  a  succession  of  epileptic  fits,  and  by  Sunday 
evening  he  was  dead. 

By  his  death  I  lost  one  of  my  kindest  and  best 
friends. 

Having  given  up  the  "  Lounger "  in  the  Illustrated 
Times,  I  commenced  a  scries  of  articles  of  the  same  nat- 
ure, which  were  published  every  Monday  in  the  Morning 
Star.  They  were  entitled  "The  Flaneur,"  and  attracted 
a  good  deal  of  attention.  The  editor  of  the  journal  at 
that  time  was  Mr.  Samuel  Lucas,  a  brother-in-law  of  Mr. 
John  Bright,  and  a  man  of  singular  sweetness  of  disposi- 
tion and  charm  of  manner.  At  his  death  he  was  succeeded 
by  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  now  the  well-known  member  of 
Parliament,  with  whom  1  have  since  lived  on  intimate 
terms  ;  while  Mr.  Russell,  now  editor  of  the  Liverpool 
Daily  Post,  Mr.  Charles  Cooper,  now  editor  of  the  Scots- 
man, and  other  men  of  mark  were  on  the  staff. 

My  connection  with  the  Star,  in  which,  besides  the 
"Flaneur,"  I  wrote  leading  articles  and  reviews,  and  con- 
tributed some  stories  and  essays  to  the  series  called 
"  Readings  by  Starlight "  in  the  evening  edition,  lasted 
for  several  years,  and  was  much  valued  by  me. 

When  Mr.  Sala  retired  from  the  editorship  of  Temple 
£ar,I  succeeded  hira,  and  was  in  that  position  in  1866, 
when  the  magazine  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Bentley,  for 
whom  I  edited  it  for  about  twelve  months.  I  resigned 
the  berth,  to  Mr.  Bentley's  regret,  expressed  in  a  kindly 
letter  in  June,  1867,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  the  editor- 
ship of  Tlnsleys''  Magazine,  then  about  to  be  established. 
This  new  enterprise  was  started  with  all  liberality  and 
energy,  with  a  number  of  excellent  contributors,  with  the 
advantage  of  having  the  first-fruits  of  Dr.  Russell's  at- 


282  i'il"'TY  YEARS  OE  LONDON   LIFE. 

tempts  at  novel  -  writing.  But  the  great  special's  coup 
cVessai  in  the  new  field  was  not  a  particularly  happy 
one,  and  triumphant  success,  such  as  had  attended  the 
establishment  of  Cornhill  and  Temple  Bar,  was  no  longer 
to  be  commanded  by  the  projectors  of  shilling  maga- 
zines. 


A   DICKJINS  CHAPTER.  283 


CHAPTER  XL 

A  DICKENS   CHAPTER. 

To  Charles  Dickens  there  are  references,  full  and  fre- 
quent, throughout  this  work.  That  it  should  be  so  is 
a  pleasant  necessity  ;  for  during  the  last  years  of  his  life 
he  was  so  large  a  feature  in  mine,  his  influence  over  me  as 
friend,  counsellor,  companion,  and  employer,  was  so  pow- 
erful, and  his  regard  for  me  so  great,  that  the  record  of 
my  career  during  that  period  owes  much  of  whatever  in- 
terest it  may  possess  to  his  connection  with  it.  In  addi- 
tion, therefore,  to  these  passing  references,  I  have  thought 
it  advisable  to  devote  a  separate  chapter  to  chronicling 
my  experience  of  him  in  such  vai'ious  phases  of  his  life 
as  were  familiar  to  me,  not  without  a  hope  of  giving  some 
new  insight  into  his  character.  With  Forster's  "Life  "  and 
the  "  Letters  "  collected  and  published  by  loving  hands 
already  before  the  world,  this  might  appear  a  somewhat 
difficult  task  ;  but  my  relations  with  the  man,  whom  since 
my  childhood  I  had,  I  may  almost  say,  worshipped,  were 
so  close,  the  intimacy  into  which,  notwithstanding  his 
nineteen  years  of  seniority,  he  admitted  me  was  so  great, 
in  our  views  and  sympathies  there  was,  if  I  may  venture 
to  say  it,  so  much  in  common,  that  I  was  always  proud  to 
think  he  felt  my  society  congenial  to  him,  and  permitted 
me  an  exceptional  insight  into  his  inner  life. 

The  nineteen  years'  seniority  was  not  reflected  in  the 
terms  of  our  companionship  or  our  converse.  "  Fancy 
ray  being  nineteen  years  older  than  this  fellow  !"  said  he 
one  day  to  his  eldest  daughter,  putting  his  hand  on  my 
shoulder.  The  young  lady  promptly  declared  there  was 
a  mistake  somewhere,  and  that  I  was  rather  the  elder  of 
the  two.  And  certainly,  except  in  the  height  of  his  do- 
mestic troubles,  Dickens,  until  within  a  couple  of  years 


284  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

of  his  death — when,  even  before  he  started  for  America, 
his  health  was,  to  unprejudiced  eyes,  manifestly  beginning 
to  break  —  in  bodily  and  mental  vigor,  in  buoyancy  of 
spirits  and  keenness  of  appreciation,  remained  extraordi- 
narily young. 

This,  T  think,  is  to  be  gleaned  from  the  "  Letters,"  but  is 
not  to  be  found  in  Forster's  "  Life."  The  fact,  I  take  it,  is 
that  the  friendship  between  Dickens  and  Forster,  as  strong 
on  both  sides  in  '70  as  it  was  in  '37,  was  yet  of  a  different 
kind.  Forster,  partly  owing  to  natural  temperament,  part- 
ly to  harassing  official  work  and  ill-health,  was  almost  as 
much  over,  as  Dickens  was  under,  their  respective  actual 
years  ;  and  though  Forster's  shrewd  common-sense,  sound 
judgment,  and  deep  affection  for  his  friend  commanded, 
as  was  right,  Dickens's  loving  and  grateful  acceptance  of 
his  views,  and  though  the  communion  between  them  was 
never  for  a  moment  weakened,  it  was  not  as  a  companion 
"in  his  lighter  hour"  that  Dickens  in  his  latter  days 
looked  on  Forster.  Perhaps  of  all  Dickens's  friends,  the 
man  in  whom  he  most  recognized  the  ties  of  old  friend- 
ship and  pleasant  companionship  existing  to  the  last  was 
Wilkie  Collins  ;  and  of  the  Avarm-hearted  hero-worship 
of  Charles  Kent  he  had  full  appreciation. 

To  me,  from  the  first  time  I  saw  him,  when  he  grasped 
my  hand  at  Tavistock  House  in  '54,*  to  the  last,  when  I 
took  leave  of  him  as  he  was  dressing  to  go  out  to  dinner, 
in  his  bedroom  in  the  house  in  Hyde  Park  Place,  which 
he  had  hired  for  the  season  of  '70,  he  was  always  affec- 
tionate, helpful,  and  unreserved.  "Pray  don't  think,  or 
pretend  to  think,"  he  wrote  in  July, '50,  in  reply  to  some 
remark  of  mine,  "  for  a  moment  that  I  can  fail  to  be 
interested  in  your  letters,  be  they  ever  so  numerous." 
"  Chronically,"  he  says,  in  reply  to  another  letter,  written 
on  behalf  of  some  one  else,  "  when  I  have  a  book  to  write 
I  give  myself  uj)  to  it.  Waywardly,  my  small  private 
rubs  make  me  uncertain  in  my  humor  sometimes,  and  un- 
willing to  tie  myself  to  the  slightest  engagement."  But  I 
always  found  him  not   merely  accessible,  but  ready  to 

*  Roc  p.  lf.8. 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  285 

throw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  business  brouglit 
before  him,  as  though  his  own  fortune  had  been  depend- 
ent on  it. 

I  have  heard  Dickens  described  by  those  who  knew  him 
as  aggressive,  imperious,  and  intolerant,  and  I  can  com- 
prehend the  accusation  ;  but  to  me  his  temper  was  always 
of  the  sweetest  and  kindest.  He  would,  I  doubt  not,  have 
been  easily  bored,  and  would  not  have  scrupled  to  show 
it ;  but  he  never  i*an  the  risk.  He  was  imperious  in  the 
sense  that  his  life  was  conducted  on  the  sic  volo  sic  jubeo 
principle,  and  that  everything  gave  way  before  him.  The 
society  in  which  he  mixed,  the  hours  which  he  kept,  the 
opinions  which  he  held,  his  likes  and  dislikes,  his  ideas  of 
what  should  or  should  not  be,  were  all  settled  by  himself, 
not  merely  for  himself,  but  for  all  those  brought  into  con- 
nection Avith  him,  and  it  was  never  imagined  they  could 
be  called  in  question.  Yet  he  was  never  regarded  as  a 
tyrant ;  he  had  immense  power  of  will,  absolute  mesmeric 
force,  as  he  proved  beneficially  more  than  once,  and  that 
he  should  lead  and  govern  seemed  perfectly  natural  to 
us: 

"We  who  had  loved  him  so,  followed  hira,  honored  him, 
Dwelt  in  his  mild  and  magnificent  eye, 
Learned  his  great  language,  caught  his  clear  accent, 
Made  him  our  pattern  to  live  and  to  die." 

The  first  time  I  visited  Dickens  at  Gadshill  Place  was 
in  the  summer  of  1857,  not  long  after  his  acquisition  of 
that  pleasant  property,  in  response  to  an  invitation  con- 
veyed in  the  following  very  characteristic  letter  : 

"Tavistock  House,  Sunday,  Nineteenth  July,  1857. 
"  My  dear  Yates, — Although  I  date  this  as  above,  I  really  write  it  from 
Southampton.  I  have  come  here  on  an  errand  which  will  grow  familiar 
to  you  before  you  know  that  Time  has  flapped  his  wings  over  your  head. 
Like  me,  you  will  find  those  babies  grow  to  be  young  men  before  you  are 
quite  sure  they  are  born ;  like  me,  you  will  have  great  teeth  drawn  with  a 
wrench,  and  will  only  then  know  that  you  ever  cut  them.  I  am  here  to 
send  Walter  away  over  what  they  call  in  Green  Bush  melodramas  'the  Big 
Drink,'  and  I  don't  at  all  know  this  day  how  he  comes  to  be  mine,  or  I 
his.* 

*  Lieutenant  Walter  Dickens  died  in  December,  '63, 


286  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFR 

"  I  don't  write  to  say  this,  or  to  say  how,  seeing  Charley  and  him  going  on 
board  the  ship  before  me  just  now,  I  suddenly  came  into  possession  of  a 
photograph  of  my  own  bacli  at  sixteen  and  twenty,  and  also  with  a  sus- 
picion that  1  had  doubled  the  last  age.  I  merely  write  to  mention  that 
Telbin  and  his  wife  are  going  down  to  Gad's  Hill  with  us  about  mid-day 
next  Sunday,  and  that  if  you  and  Mrs.  Yates  will  come  too,  we  shall  be  de- 
lighted to  have  you.  He  can  give  you  a  bed,  and  you  can  be  in  town  (if 
you  have  any  such  savage  necessity)  by  twenty  minutes  after  ten  on  Mon- 
day morning. 

"  Faithfully  yours,  Charles  Dickens." 

We  had  a  most  delightful  day,  lying  out  on  the  grass 
under  a  tree.  Dickens  was  greatly  amused  at  a  story  of 
Telbin's  about  a  Scotchman  at  the  play,  who,  in  the  ecsta- 
sy of  his  delight,  thumped  the  man  sitting  next  him  ;  and 
he  himself  told  some  capital  stories  of  Rogers  the  poet,  of 
whom  he  gave  a  ludicrous  imitation. 

Within  the  next  twelve  months  the  story  of  Dickens's 
domestic  affairs  was  made  known  to  the  public,  and  he 
had  of  his  own  self-seeking  deliberately  chosen  to  under- 
go such  an  ordeal  as  is  proposed  to  few  men.  It  had  been 
obvious  to  those  visiting  at  Tavistock  House  that,  for 
some  time,  the  relations  between  host  and  hostess  had 
been  somewhat  strained  ;  but  this  state  of  affairs  was  gen- 
ei'ally  ascribed  to  the  irritability  of  the  literary  tempera- 
ment on  Dickens's  part,  and  on  Mrs.  Dickens's  side  to  a 
little  love  of  indolence  and  ease,  such  as,  however  provok- 
ing to  their  husbands,  is  not  uncommon  among  middle- 
aged  matrons  with  large  families.  But  it  was  never  im- 
atrined  that  the  affair  would  assume  the  dimensions  of  a 
public  scandal. 

Dickens,  the  master  of  humor  and  pathos,  the  arch- 
rompeller  of  tears  and  laughter,  was  in  no  sense  an  emo- 
tional man.  Very  far,  indeed,  was  he  from  "wearing  his 
lieart  u|)on  his  sleeve,"  where  his  own  affairs  were  con- 
cerned, though  under  INIr.  Delane's  advice  he  was  induced 
to  publish  that  most  uncalled-for  statement  in  Jlousehold 
Words  regarding  his  separation  ;  a  step  which,  in  the  gen- 
eral estimation,  »lid  hini  nmre  harm  tlian  the  separation 
itself.  He  showed  n»e  this  statement  in  proof,  and  young 
as  I  was,  and  fresh  as  was  then  our  acquaintance,  I  felt  so 
strongly  that  I  ventured  to  express  my  feelings  as  to  the 


A   DICKENS   CHAPTER.  287 

inadvisability  of  its  issue.  Dickens  said  Forster  and  Lem- 
on were  of  the  same  opinion — he  quarrelled  with  Lemon 
and  with  Messrs.  Bradbury  &  Evans  for  refusing  to  pub- 
lish the  statement  in  Punch,  and  never,  I  think,  spoke  to 
any  of  them  again — but  that  he  himself  felt  most  strong- 
ly that  it  ought  to  appear  ;  that,  on  Forster's  suggestion, 
he  had  referred  the  matter  to  Mr.  Delane,  and  by  that 
gentleman's  decision  he  should  abide. 

There  can,  I  take  it,  be  no  doubt  that  if  the  matter  was 
referred  to  any  jury  composed  of  men  ordinarily  conver- 
sant with  the  world  and  society,  the  verdict  returned 
would  be  a  unanimous  condemnation  of  the  advice  ten- 
dered to  Dickens  by  Delane.  The  truth  is  that  this  par- 
ticular episode  in  Dickens's  career  is  not  an  appropriate 
one  for  indiscriminate  investigation,  and  the  mistake 
which  it  will  be  generally  held  Dickens  made  Avas  that 
which  is  usually  known  as  "  washing  dirty  linen  in  pub- 
lic." Dickens  had  the  faults  as  well  as  the  virtues  of  the 
literary  character.  A  man  who  has  given  to  the  world  so 
many  distinct  creations — creations  which  will  always  have 
their  place  in  English  literature,  and  which  have  passed 
into  the  main  currency  of  the  English  language — was  full 
of  the  irritability,  the  sensitiveness,  and  the  intolerance 
of  dulness  which  might  have  been  expected.  If  he  had 
been  wholly  devoid  of  a  certain  bias  in  the  direction  of 
theatrical  ostentation — if,  in  a  word,  his  temperament  had 
been  more  rigid,  more  severe — if  he  had  not  given  such 
prominence  in  his  thoughts  to  the  link  which  bound  him 
to  the  public  whom  he  served  so  splendidly,  he  would  not, 
in  this  particular  affair,  have  acted  as  he  did.  The  two 
leading  personages  in  this  little  drama  are  dead,  and  T 
fail  to  see  the  necessity  or  expediency  of  recalling  its  va- 
rious details.  It  is  not  for  me  to  apportion  blame  or  to 
mete  out  criticism.  My  intimacy  with  Dickens,  his  kind- 1 
ness  to  me,  my  devotion  to  him,  were  such  that  my  lips  I 
are  sealed  and  my  pen  is  paralyzed  as  regards  circum- 
stances which,  if  I  felt  less  responsibility  and  less  delicacy, 
I  might  be  at  liberty  to  state.  As  it  is,  I  am  concerned 
with  the  man,  and  I  shall  content  myself  with  remarking 
that  it  was  fortunate  for  him  that  just  at  this  time  Dick- 


288  FlfTY  YEARS   OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ens  was  opening  up  a  new  field  of  labor.  To  have  con- 
centrated his  mind  upon  the  writing  of  a  book,  amid  all 
this  Sturm  und  Drang,  would  have  been  impossible ;  but 
into  his  public  readings  he  could  throw  all  his  energy,  and 
temporarily  forget  his  troubles. 

Occasional  readings  were  given  at  St.  Martin's  Hall, 
Long  Acre,  in  the  months  of  May,  June,  and  July.  There 
was  a  considerable  amount  of  anxiety  among  Dickens's  in- 
timate friends  lest  the  indignation  caused  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  "  statement,"  and  still  existing  among  a  sec- 
tion of  the  public,  might  find  vent  on  his  first  appearance 
on  the  platform.  Arthur  Smith,  his  manager,  a  timid  man 
by  nature,  was  especially  nervous  ;  but  I  do  not  think 
Dickens  was  made  acquainted  with  the  feelings  of  some 
of  those  by  whom  he  was  surrounded. 

But  the  moment  Dickens  stepped  on  to  the  platform, 
walking  rather  stifily,  right  shoulder  well  forward,  as  usu- 
al, bud  in  button-hole,  and  gloves  in  hand,  all  doubt  was 
blown  into  the  air.  lie  was  received  with  a  roar  of  cheer- 
ing which  might  have  been  heard  at  Charing  Cross,  and 
wliich  was  again  and  again  renewed.  Whatever  he  may 
have  felt,  Dickens  showed  no  emotion.  He  took  his  place 
at  his  reading-desk,  and  made  a  sliort  prefatory  speech, 
in  which  he  said  that,  though  he  had  read  one  of  his  books 
to  a  London  audience  more  than  once,  this  was  the  first 
time  he  had  ventured  to  do  so  professionally;  that  he  had 
considered  the  matter,  and  saw  no  reason  against  liis  do- 
ing so,  either  in  deterioration  of  dignity  or  anything  else; 
and  that,  therefore,  he  took  his  place  on  the  platform  with 
as  much  composure  as  he  should  at  his  own  desk.  Then 
he  opened  his  book  and  commenced. 

The  book  was  "The  Cricket  on  tlie  Hearth,"  now  read 
for  the  first  time.  Hitherto,  Dickens  had  alwa^'s  taken 
the  "Carol  '*  for  his  readings,  and  I  was  curious  and  some- 
what doubtful  as  to  the  effect  of  tlie  new  book  on  an  au- 
dience. The  "Carol"  is,  so  to  speak,  more  Christ  ma  ftsy ; 
the  descri])tions  of  out-door  scenery  and  of  domestic  do- 
ings, at  what  time-honored  custom  leads  us  to  call  in  after- 
dinner  speeches  that  "festive  season  of  the  year,"  cannot 
fail  in  making  an  immediate  and  jialpable  im]»ression  ;  the 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  289 

rough,  hearty  geniality,  smacking  of  frost  and  firelight, 
of  crackling  logs  and  sputtering  chestnuts,  and  steaming 
punch  and  sparkling  wine,  that  pervades  every  page,  is  ir- 
resistible in  its  influence :  reading,  or,  better  still,  listen- 
ing to  it,  we  rub  our  hands  and  shrug  our  shoulders  in- 
voluntarily. To  take  up  the  book  in  the  hot  weather 
would  be  ridiculous,  for  the  mind  is  so  imbued  with  the 
word-painting  that  sunlight  is  an  insult  to  the  understand- 
ing, and  dust  and  verdure  are  simply  delusions  and  snares. 
The  characters,  moreover,  are  essentially  tyj^ical  of  Lon- 
don life  :  we  have  all  done  business  with  Scrooge,  played 
at  forfeits  at  his  nephew's  house,  stood  "  best  man  "  to 
Topper  on  the  occasion  of  his  wedding  with  the  plump 
sister  with  the  lace  tucker,  peeped  into  Fezziwig's  ware- 
house, seen  Old  Joe  smoking  his  pipe  at  the  door  of  the 
Clerkenwell  marine-store,  been  waited  upon  by  the  benev- 
olent merchant  with  his  subscription-list  ;  and  from  how 
many  Camden  Town  and  Dalston  chimneys  has  not  the 
goose-stuffing-tainted  smoke  of  Bob  Cratchit's  fire  gone 
curling  into  the  crisp  and  glorious  air? 

In  some  of  these  attributes  the  "  Cricket"  is  most  defi- 
cient. It  is  essentially  a  tale  of  rustic  and  domestic  life, 
passing  in  that  class  of  society  wdiich  a  cant  phrase  has  so 
generously  stigmatized  as  the  "  lower  orders ;"  and  it  is 
dependent  for  its  .success  on  the  concentration  and  elabora- 
tion of  an  interest  which,  originally  powerfully  conceived, 
is  worked  out  with  masterly  skill,  and  arrests  the  atten- 
tion rather  by  the  faithful  and  gradual  development  of 
character  than  by  the  observation  and  photography  of 
every-day  scenes  and  objects. 

There  was,  however,  no  doubt  of  its  interest  and  attrac- 
tion to  the  audience  present — ordinary  upper  and  lower 
middle-class  people,  among  whom  the  Dickens  books  find 
their  most  numerous  and  most  enthusiastic  readers.  From 
first  to  last  they  sat  in  rapt  suspense,  broken  only  by  out- 
bursts of  laughter  and  applause  ;  and  at  the  conclusion 
the  vehement  cheering  was  renewed.  The  success  of  the 
readings  was  assured. 

At  the  end  of  July,  Dickens,  accompanied  by  Arthur 
Smith,  started  on  a  provincial  tour,  commencing  at  Clif- 

13 


290  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

ton  on  the  2d  August.     On  the  4th  August  he  wrote  me 
from  Plymouth  : 

"  We  had  a  most  noble  night  at  Exeter  last  night,  and  turned  numbers 
away.  Arthur  is  something  between  a  Home  Secretary  and  a  furniture- 
dealer  in  Rathbone  Place.  He  is  either  always  corresponding  in  the  gen- 
teelest  manner,  or  dragging  rout-seats  about  without  his  coat." 

And  again,  in  a  letter  dated  from  the  Adelphi  Hotel, 
Liverpool,  21st  August,  he  says  : 

"  A  wonderful  house  here  last  night,  and  the  largest  in  money  we  have 
ever  had,  including  St.  Martin's  Hall.  There  were  2300  people  and  200 
guineas.  The  very  books  were  all  sold  out  early  in  the  evening;  and 
Arthur,  bathed  in  checks,  took  headers  into  tickets,  floated  on  billows  of 
passes,  dived  under  weirs  of  shillings,  staggered  home  faint  with  gold  and 
silver." 

Thenceforward  all  was  plain  sailing.  Those  "peculiar 
relations  (personally  affectionate,  and  like  no  other  man's) 
which  subsist  between  me  and  the  public,"  of  which  Dick- 
ens had  spoken  in  his  capacity  as  author,  stood  him  in 
good  stead  in  his  new  venture.  lie  was  received  every- 
where with  the  greatest  personal  affection  and  respect, 
and  his  receipts  were  enormous. 

Within  a  year  Tavistock  House  was  sold,  and  Dickens 
took  up  his  permanent  residence  at  Gadshill.  A  stout, 
red-faced,  comfortable,  old-fasliionod  family  house,  with 
a  wide  porch  and  a  bell-tower,  which  always  associated 
it  in  my  mind  with  the  Warren  at  Chigwell ;  but  stand- 
ing in  a  broad  garden  easily  overlooked  from  the  road, 
and  with  an  occasionally  noisy  country  tavern  within  eye 
and  earshot,  Gadshill  Place  was  not,  according  to  a  com- 
mon phrase,  "  every  one's  money."  But  Dickens  had  as- 
sociations witli  it,  and  gave  associations  to  it,  and  also 
j>ractically  improved  the  [)roperty  by  judicious  outlay. 
A  generous  man,  he  also  was  always  a  man  of  business  ; 
liberal  with  his  money,  he  always  meant  having  his 
money's  worth. 

Life  at  Gadshill  for  visitors — I  speak  from  experience — 
was  delightful.  You  breakfasted  at  nine,  smoked  your 
cigar,  read  the  j)apers,  and  ])ottered  abotit  the  garden 
until   luncheon  a(  one.     All  th«'  morning  Dickens  was  at 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  291 

work,  either  in  the  study — a  room  on  the  left  hand  of  the 
porch  as  you  entered  :  a  large  room,  entirely  lined  with 
books,  and  with  a  fine  bay-window,  in  which  the  desk  was 
placed* — or  in  the  Chalet,  a  Swiss  house  oi'  Tour  rooms, 
presented  to  him  by  Fechter,  which  took  to  pieces,  and 
was  erected  in  a  shrubbery  on  the  side  of  the  road  op- 
posite to  the  house,  where  he  had  a  fine  view  extending 
to  the  river.  In  the  Chalet  he  did  his  last  work,  on  the 
fatal  8th  June,  using  a  writing-slope  which,  by  the  kind- 
ness of  Miss  Hogarth,  is  now  mine,  and  on  which  I  write 
these  words. 

After  luncheon  (a  substantial  meal,  though  Dickens 
generally  took  little  but  bread  and  cheese  and  a  glass  of 
ale)  the  party  would  assemble  in  the  hall,  which  was  hung 
round  with  a  capital  set  of  Hogarth  prints,  now  in  my 
possession,  and  settle  on  their  plans.  Some  walked,  some 
drove,  some  pottered  ;  there  was  Rochester  Cathedral  to 
be  visited,  the  ruins  of  the  Castle  to  be  explored,  Cobham 
Park  (keys  for  which  had  been  granted  by  Lord  Darnley) 
in  all  its  sylvan  beauty  within  easy  distance.  I,  of  course, 
elected  to  walk  with  Dickens  ;  and  off  we  set,  with  such 
of  the  other  guests  as  chose  to  face  the  ordeal.  They 
were  not  many,  and  they  seldom  came  twice  ;  for  the  dis- 
tance traversed  was  seldom  less  than  twelve  miles,  and 
the  pace  was  good  throughout.  I  have  now  in  my  mind's 
eye  a  portly  American  gentleman  in  varnished  boots,  who 
started  with  us  full  of  courage,  but  whom  we  left  panting 
by  the  Avayside,  and  for  whom  the  basket-carriage  had  to 
be  sent. 

It  was  during  one  of  these  walks  that  Dickens  showed 
me,  in  Cobham  Park,  the  stile  close  by  which,  after  a 
fearful  struggle,  Mr.  Dadd  had  been  murdered  by  his 
lunatic  son  in  1843.  Dickens  acted  the  whole  scene  Avith 
his  usual  dramatic  force.  I  had  heard  something  of  the 
story  before  from  Frith,  who  is  an  excellent  raconteur. 
The  murderer  then  escaped,  but  was  afterwards  secured : 


*  Originally  the  "  Bachelor  Bedroom,"  and  under  that  title  most  hu- 
morously described,  with  its  various  tenants,  by  Wilkie  Collins  in  House- 
hold Words. 


292  FIFTY  YEAKS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

he  had  been  travelling  on  a  coach,  and  his  homicidal  ten- 
dencies had  been  aroused  by  regarding  the  large  neck, 
disclosed  by  a  very  low  collar,  of  a  fellow-passenger,  who, 
waking  from  a  sleep,  found  Dadd's  fingers  playing  round 
his  throat.  On  searching  Dadd's  studio,  after  his  arrest, 
they  found,  painted  on  the  wall  behind  a  screen,  portraits 
of  Egg,  Stone,  and  Frith,  Dadd's  intimate  associates,  all 
with  their  throats  cut  —  a  pleasant  suggestion  of  their 
friend's  intentions. 

Generally  accompanied  by  his  dogs  (when  I  was  first 
with  him  they  were  Turk,  a  liver  -  colored  mastiff,  and 
Linda,  a  St.  Bernard,  which  Albert  Smith  had  brought 
from  Switzerland),  Dickens  would  go  along  at  a  swinging 
pace  :  sometimes  over  the  marshes  famous  in  "  Great  Ex- 
pectations ;"  sometimes  along  a  hilly,  tramp-infested  road 
to  Gravesend,  skirting  Cobham  Park,  and  past  the  "Leath- 
er Bottle,"  whither  Mr.  Tupman  retired ;  past  Fort  Pitt, 
near  which  Dr.  Slammer  proposed  to  take  Mr.  Winkle's 
life  ;  down  miry  lanes  and  over  vast  stubble  -  fields,  to 
outlying  little  churches,  and  frequently  to  a  quaint  old 
almshouse  standing,  I  cannot  remember  where,  in  a  green 
court-yard,  like  an  Oxford  "  quad." 

They  were  stiff  walks  for  any  one  not  in  full  training, 
as  Dickens  always  was  at  that  time,  but  to  me  they  never 
seemed  long  or  fatiguing,  beguiled  as  the  time  was  by  his 
most  charming  talk.  With  small  difficult y,  if  the  subject 
were  deftly  introduced,  he  could  be  induced  to  talk  about 
his  books,  to  tell  how  and  why  certain  ideas  occurred  to 
him,  and  how  he  got  such  and  such  a  scene  or  character. 
Generally  his  excellent  memory  accurately  retained  his 
own  j)hraHe8  and  actual  words,  so  that  he  would  at  once 
correct  a  iniscpiotalioii ;  but  on  more  than  one  occasion  1 
have,  in  conversation  with  him,  purposely  misquoted  from 
one  of  bis  books,  in  order  that  he  might  set  me  right. 
Who,  indeed,  would  not  be  sus))ected,  justly  or  unjustly, 
of  misquotation,  if  lu'  couM  be  set  right  in  a  letter  so 
overbrimming  with  dciicictus  fun  as  tlu>  following? — 

"Your  qiiottit.ion  is,  ns  I  Hiippusi'ii,  all  wioni;.  The  text  is  not  '  which 
his  owls  was  orniiiis.' 

"  When  Mr.  llarris  went '  into  a  empty  dog-kennel '  to  spare  his  sensitive 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  293 

nature  the  anguish  of  overhearing  Mrs.  Harris's  exclamation  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  birth  of  her  first  ciiild  (the  Princess  Royal  of  the  Harris 
family),  '  he  never  took  his  hands  away  from  his  ears  or  come  out  once 
till  he  was  siiown  the  baby.'  On  encountering  that  spectacle,  he  was  (be- 
ing of  a  weakly  constitution)  '  took  with  fits.'  For  this  distressing  com- 
plaint he  was  incdically  treated:  the  doctor  'collared  him,  and  laid  him 
down  on  his  back  upon  the  airy  stones ' — please  to  observe  what  follows — 
'  and  she  was  told,  to  ease  her  mind,  his  'owls  was  organs.' 

"  That  is  to  say  :  Mrs.  Harris,  lying  in  her  bed,  hears  a  noise,  apparently 
proceeding  from  the  back-yard,  and  says,  in  a  flushed  and  hysterical  man- 
ner, 'What  'owls  are  those?  Who  is  a-'owling?  Not  my  'ugcband  ?' 
Upon  vvhich  the  doctor,  looking  round  one  of  the  bottom  posts  of  the  bed, 
and  taking  Mrs.  Harris's  pulse  in  a  re-assuring  manner,  says,  with  admi- 
rable presence  of  mind, '  Howls,  my  dear  inadani  ?  No,  no,  no — what  are 
■we  thinking  of?  Howls,  my  dear  Mrs.  Harris?  Ha,  ha,  ha!  Organs, 
ma'am,  organs — organs  in  the  street,  Mrs.  Harris.     No  howls  !'  " 

While  on  this  subject,  I  may  say  that  many  of  Dickens's 
private  letters  read  like  excerpts  from  his  published  works. 
Here  is  one,  for  instance.  My  old  friend  Mr.  Thomas 
Archer  pressed  me  to  ask  Dickens  to  take  the  chair  at  a 
dinner  on  behalf  of  the  Orthopcedic  Hospital.  Here  is 
Dickens's  reply  : 

"  I  send  you  an  Orthopcedic  shield  to  defend  your  manly  bosom  from 
the  pens  of  the  enemy.  For  a  good  many  years  I  have  suffered  a  great  deal 
from  charities,  but  never  anything  like  what  I  suffer  now.  The  amount 
of  correspondence  they  inflict  upon  me  is  really  incredible.  But  this  is 
nothing.  Benevolent  men  get  behind  the  piers  of  the  gates,  lying  in  wait 
for  my  going  out ;  and  when  I  peep  shrinkisigly  from  my  study  window  I 
see  their  pot-bellied  shadows  projected  on  the  gravel.  Benevolent  bullies 
drive  up  in  hansom  cabs,  with  engraved  portraits  of  their  benevolent  insti- 
tutions lianging  over  tlicir  aprons  like  banners  on  their  outward  walls. 
Benevolent  area  sneaks  get  lost  in  the  kitchen,  and  are  found  to  impede 
the  circulation  of  the  knife-cleaning  macliine.  My  man  has  been  heard 
to  say  '  that  if  it  was  a  wicious  place,  well  and  good — that  ain't  door  work ; 
but  that  when  all  the  Christian  virtues  is  always  a-shouldering  and  a-hei- 
bering  on  you  in  the  'all,  a-trying  to  get  past  you  and  cut  up  into  master's 
room,  why  no  wages  as  you  couldn't  name  would  make  it  up  to  you.' 

"  Persecuted  ever,  C.  D." 

From  Paris,  in  September,  '65,  he  writes  : 

"  The  heat  has  been  excessive  on  this  side  of  the  Channel,  and  I  got  a 
slight  sunstroke  last  Thursday,  and  was  obliged  to  be  doctored  and  put  to 
bed  for  a  day.  But,  thank  God,  I  am  all  right  again.  The  man  who  sells 
the  tisane  on  the  boulevards  can't  keep  the  flies  out  of  his  glasses  and  a» 


294  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

he  wears  them  on  his  red  velvet  bands,  the  flies  work  themselves  into  the 
ends  of  the  tumblers,  trying  to  get  through  and  tickle  the  man.  If  fly-life 
were  long  enough,  I  think  they  would  at  last.  Three  paving  blouses  came 
to  work  at  the  corner  of  this  street  last  Monday,  pulled  up  a  bit  of  the 
road,  sat  down  and  looked  at  it,  and  fell  asleep.  On  Tuesday  one  of  the 
blouses  spat  on  his  hands,  and  seemed  going  to  begin,  but  didn't.  The 
other  two  have  shown  no  sign  of  life  whatever.  This  morning  the  indus- 
trious one  ate  a  loaf.  You  may  rely  upon  this  as  the  latest  news  from  the 
French  capital." 

Dickens  took  great  interest  in  theatrical  affairs,  and  was 
very  fond  of  theatrical  society.  He  had  a  life-long  affec- 
tion for  Macready,  and  a  great  regard  for  Regnier  and 
Fechter ;  of  the  latter  he  said  once  to  me,  "He  has  the 
brain  of  a  man,  combined  with  that  strange  power  of  ar- 
riving, without  knowing  how  or  why,  at  the  truth,  which 
one  usually  finds  only  in  a  woman,"  He  had  also  a  liking 
for  Phelps,  Buckstone,  Webster,  Madame  Celeste,  and  the 
Keeleys.  He  saw  most  of  the  pieces  which  were  produced 
from  time  to  time,  but  he  delighted  in  the  zVregular  drama, 
the  shows  and  booths  and  circuses. 

One  day — a  Queen's  birthday,  on  which  I  had  a  holiday 
from  my  office — we  had  spent  together  at  Gadshill.  The 
family  were  absent,  and  the  house  was  in  charge  of  the 
gardener,  whose  wife  cooked  us  a  steak,  and  Dickens  had 
taken  care  to  bring  the  cellar-key  with  him.  "We  rambled 
about  during  the  afternoon,  and  at  night  we  went  to  the 
Rochester  Theatre.  I  forget  the  play ;  indeed,  I  recollect 
nothing  but  the  presence  of  mind  of  a  large  man  in  a 
green  baize  tunic  and  a  pair  of  buff  boots,  who,  to  Dick- 
ens's joy,  evidently  did  not  know  a  word  of  his  part. 
He  strode  into  the  middle  of  the  stage  without  uttering 
a  syllable,  looked  fiercely  round,  then  said,  in  stentorian 
tones,  "  I  will  r-r-re-tur-r-n  anon  !"  and  walked  quietly  off 
to  read  up  his  jiart  at  the  "wing." 

We  returned  to  town  that  night,  and  Dickens,  who  had 
a  theory  that  no  one  ever  liked  it  to  be  thought  that  he 
or  she  could  sleep  in  public,  fell  into  a  doze  in  the  train. 
When  he  woke  I  said  to  him,  "You've  been  asleep,  sir!" 
Tic  looked  guilty,  and  said,"T  have,  sir!  and  T  suppose 
you're  going  to  tell  me  that  //""  '  haven't  closed  an  e3^e!"' 

On   the  very  last  outing  wliicli  \vv  had  together,  al)out 


A   DICKENS  CHAPTER.  295 

two  months  before  his  death,  we  went  to  a  circus,  where 
we  saw  a  highly  -  trained  elephant  standing  on  its  head, 
dancing  and  performing  tricks.  Dickens  was  greatly 
pleased.  "  I've  never  seen  anything  better !"  he  said  ; 
"it's  wonderful  how  they  teach  them  to  do  all  this!'* 
Then  a  moment  after  his  eyes  flashed  with  that  peculiar 
light  which  always  betokened  the  working  of  some  funny 
notion  in  his  brain,  and  he  said,  "They've  never  taught 
the  rhinoceros  to  do  anything  ;  and  I  don't  think  they 
could,  unless  it  were  to  collect  the  water-rate,  or  something 
equally  unpleasant  .^" 

There  was  another  "  show  "  experience  of  mine,  which 
Dickens  was  never  tired  of  hearing  me  relate.  Many 
years  ago,  one  dusty  summer's  night,  I  turned  into  the 
Strand  Theatre,  where  were  being  exhibited  the  Bosjes- 
men,  some  wretched  African  savages,  at  a  charge  of  a 
shilling  to  the  boxes,  sixpence  to  the  pit,  and  threepence 
to  the  gallery.  I  went  into  the  pit.  After  the  miserable 
creatures  had  gone  through  a  dance,  their  showman,  a  gen- 
tleman in  black,  with  beautifully-arranged  hair,  advanced 
to  give  a  descrijjtion  of  them.  "  The  little  man,"  he  com- 
menced, in  mellifluous  accents,  "is  forty-two  years  old  !" 
He  paused  for  an  instant,  and  a  ribald  boy  in  the  three- 
penny gallery  called  out,  "And  how  old  are  youf''  The 
showman  started,  struck  an  attitude,  and  with  out-stretched 
hand  exclaimed,  "  Old  enough  to  tell  you,  sir,  that  you  are 
no  gentleman  !" 

As  an  editor  Dickens  was  most  painstaking  and  con- 
scientious: outside  contributors,  whose  articles  had  passed 
the  first  critical  ordeal  of  Mr.  Wills's  judgment,  and  had 
been  referred  to  "  the  Chief,"  received  thoroughly  im- 
partial attention  from  him,  while  for  his  friends  he  could 
not  take  too  much  trouble  or  show  too  much  interest.  As 
an  illustration  of  this,  take  the  following  letter,  written 
after  reading  in  MS.  a  story  submitted  in  '57: 

"I  return  the  story  with  pleasure,  and  I  need  not  tell  you  that  you  are 
not  mistaken  in  the  last  lines  of  your  note. 

"Excuse  lue  on  that  ground  if  I  say  a  word  or  two  as  to  what  I  think 
(I  mention  it  with  a  view  to  the  future)  might  l)e  better  in  the  paper.  The 
opening  is  excellent,  but  it  passes  too  completely  into  the  Irishman's  nar- 


296  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ratire — does  not  ligbt  it  up  with  the  life  about  it,  or  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  is  delivered,  and  does  not  carry  through  it,  as  I  think  it 
should  with  a  certain  indefinable  subtlety,  the  thread  with  which  you  be- 
gin your  weaving.  I  will  tell  Wills  to  send  me  the  proof,  and  will  try  and 
show  you  what  I  mean  when  I  have  gone  over  it  carefully." 

Again : 

"  The  mail-journey  very  good ;  perhaps  a  little  diffuse  here  and  there — 
in  the  railway-carriage  and  on  board  the  steamer ;  but  I  will  run  my  pen 
through  such  portions  in  the  proof." 

He  was  a  ruthless  "cutter,"  and  the  very  last  time  I 
saw  him  at  the  office  he  laughed  immensely,  as  I  said, 
when  I  noticed  him  run  his  blue-ink  pen  through  about 
half  a  column  of  the  proof  before  him,  "  Poor  gentleman ! 
there's  fifteen  shillings  lost  to  him  forever!"* 

Dickens  Avas  by  far  the  best  after-dinner  speaker  I  have 
ever  heard.  Mr.  Sala,  Lord  Roseberj^,  Sir  William  Har- 
court,  Mr,  Parkinson,  Lord  Houghton,  and  Mr.  Henry 
L'ving  are  good,  but  Dickens  was  above  them  all.  For 
years  I  scarcely  missed  an  opportunity  of  hearing  him 
speak  in  public.  The  first  time  I  ever  heard  him  was  on 
a  Shaks})eare  birthday  at  the  Garrick  Club,  when  he  was 
in  the  chaii',  and  made  an  elaborate  speech,  naming  the  day 
as  the  birthday  of  all  the  wondrous  characters  of  Shak- 
speare's  creation,  sj)ecially,  I  remember,  mentioning  Fal- 
staff  as  the  "  hugest,  merriest,  wittiest  creature  that  never 
lived."  The  last  time  I  heard  him  was  two  months  before 
his  death,  at  the  dinner  for  the  benefit  of  the  News-vend- 
ers' Fund,  a  favorite  institution  of  his,  when  he  again  al- 
luded to  Falstaff—" Trying,"  he  said,  "like  Falstaff,  but 
with  a  modification  almost  as  large  as  liimself,  less  to 
speak  himself  than  to  be  the  cause  of  speaking  in  others." 

In  connection  with  this  subject  I  am  reminded  of  Dick- 
ens's wonderful  readiness.     I  was  so  much  in  the  habit  of 


*  I  suppose  that  in  their  close  attention  to  his  suggestions  his  regular 
(llHciples  became  unconscious  imitators  of  liis  style.  In  Mr.  J.  0.  Ilottcn's 
"Life,"  and  in  Mr.  A.  W.  Ward's  admirable  monograph  in  the  "English 
Mi;n  of  Letters  "  scries,  a  paper  of  mine  called  "  Pincher  Astray  "  is  at- 
iriljuted  to  Dickens. 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  29*7 

going  with  him  to  public  dinners,  and  the  managers  of 
those  entertainments  so  frequently  begged  me  to  propose 
his  health  as  chairman,  that  it  became  a  joke  between  us 
as  to  whether  I  could  possibly  find  anything  new  to  say. 
On  one  occasion — it  was  at  one  of  the  News-venders'  din- 
ners— I  said  nothing  at  all !  I  duly  rose,  but,  after  a  few 
words,  my  thoughts  entirely  deserted  me,  I  entirely  lost 
the  thread  of  what  I  had  intended  saying,  I  felt  as  though 
a  black  veil  were  dropped  over  my  head  ;  all  I  could  do 
was  to  mutter  "  health,"  "  chairman,"  and  to  sit  down.  I 
was  tolerably  well  known  to  the  guests  at  those  dinners, 
and  they  were  evidently  much  astonished.  They  cheered 
the  toast,  as  in  duty  bound,  and  Dickens  was  on  his  feet 
in  a  moment.  "  Often,"  he  said — "  often  as  I  have  had 
the  pleasure  of  having  my  health  proposed  by  ray  friend, 
who  has  just  sat  down,  I  have  never  yet  seen  him  so  over- 
come by  his  affection  and  generous  emotion  as  on  the 
present  occasion."  These  words  turned  what  would  have 
been  a  fiasco  into  a  triumph.  "  I  saved  you  that  time,  I 
think,  sir !"  he  said  to  me  as  I  walked  away  with  him. 
"Serves  you  well  right  for  being  over-confident !" 

I  do  not  think  I  ever  heard  him  to  less  advantage  than 
on  an  occasion  when  most  was  expected  of  him,  at  the 
farewell  banquet  given  to  him  at  the  Freemasons'  Tav- 
ern on  the  2d  November,  1867,  just  before  his  last  visit 
to  America.  For  that  affair  Charles  Kent,  Edward  Levy 
(Lawson),  and  I  were  the  joint  secretaries,  and  we  worked 
night  and  day  to  make  it  the  success  which  it  proved. 
The  applications  for  tickets  were  innumerable,  and  hun- 
dreds had  to  be  disappointed.  Just  as  all  were  taking 
their  places,  Edward  Levy  came  to  me  and  said,  "We 
must  find  a  better  place  for  Matthew  Arnold  !  He  is 
right  away  at  the  far  end."  We  went  together  and  in- 
duced the  great  poet-critic  to  change  his  seat.  "  Who  is 
that  very  polite  gentleman  ?"  asked  Mr,  Arnold  of  me  as 
we  walked  up  the  room.  "Mr.  Edward  Levy."  "What 
—of  the  Daily  Telegraph?''  "Yes,"  I  replied;  "the 
keeper  of  the  '  young  lions.'  " 

Lord  Lytton  presided  over  this  dinner,  and,  due  allow- 
ance being  made  for  his  high-falutin  matter  and  manner, 


298  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFfi. 

spoke  well ;  but  the  best  speech  of  the  night  was  made 
by  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn. 

In  the  following  week  I  accompanied  Dickens  and  his 
daughters,  Wilkie  Collins,  Arthur  Chappell,  and  Charles 
Kent  to  Liverpool,  whence  he  sailed  next  day  in  the  Cuba, 
which,  five  years  later,  took  me  to  New  York.  Leave- 
taking,  as  is  always  the  case,  was  diflUcult ;  we  had  in- 
spected Dickens's  cabin,  looked  round  the  ship,  and  were 
uncomfortably  uttering  commonplaces,  when  the  knot  was 
cut  by  Dickens  suddenly  turning  to  me,  as  standing  near- 
est to  him,  and  saying,  "It  must  be  done!" — then  in  his 
heartiest  tone,  and  with  his  warmest  hand -grip,  "God 
bless  you,  old  fellow  !" 

Some  months  previously  he  had  given  me  a  great  proof 
of  his  affection  and  esteem.  I  had  heard  from  Mr.  Stan- 
ford, the  geographical  publisher,  that  the  directors  of  a 
certain  well-known  and  excellent  society  were  about  to 
establish  a  secular  weekly  periodical,  somewhat  on  the 
Household  Words  basis,  and  that  they  were  looking  out 
for  an  editor.  I  immediately  made  up  my  mind  to  apply 
for  the  post,  and  wrote  to  two  or  three  friends  for  testi- 
monials of  my  fitness  for  it.  This  is  what  Dickens  sent 
me  in  reply  : 

"  I  am  exceedingly  sorry  that  I  should  happen  to  be  away  reading,  and 
tliercfore  unable  to  help  you  in  your  presentation  of  yourself  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  the .     But  I  fear  1  may  not  be  in  Loudon  for  more  than 

twenty-four  hours  together  until  May  is  nearly  out. 

"  You  cannot  overstate  my  recommendation  of  you  for  the  editorship  de- 
scribed in  the  advertisement ;  nor  can  you  easily  exaggerate  the  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  your  fiualifications  on  which  such  recommendation  is 
founded.  A  man  even  of  youi-  (piickncss  and  ready  knowledge  would  be 
useless  in  such  an  olKce  iink'ss  lie  added  to  his  natural  and  accpiircd  parts 
habits  of  business,  punctuality,  steadiness,  and  zeal.  I  so  thoroughly  rely 
on  you  in  all  these  respects,  and  I  have  had  so  much  experience  of  you  in 
connection  with  them,  that  perhaps  the  Committee  may  deem  my  testi- 
mony in  your  Ijchalf  of  some  unusual  worth. 

"  In  any  way  you  think  best  make  it  known  to  them,  and  in  every  way 
rely  on  my  help,  if  you  can  show  me  ftirilier  how  to  help  you. 

"  With  lieartv  good  wishes,  ever  yours, 

"CD."* 

*  I  must  toll  the  conclusion  of  this  story.  The  Committee  selected  me 
and  one  other — a  gentleman  afterwards  well  known  at  the  criminal  bar, 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  299 

That  letter  is  a  specimen  of  the  heartiness  and  thorough- 
ness which  characterized  every  action  of  Dickens's  life. 
From  the  writing  of  a  book,  "  out  of  which  I  have  come," 
he  said  in  a  letter  to  Lady  Blessington,  "  looking  like  a 
murderer,"  to  a  game  of  rounders  in  the  Gadshill  field,  to 
dancing  a  Scotch  reel  or  leading  "Sir  Roger  de  Covcrley," 
to  organizing  a  party  for  playing  "Spanish  merchant"  or 
"  buzz,"  to  brewing  and  baking  a  jug  of  gin-punch — what- 
ever he  did  was  done  with  all  his  heart  and  soul. 

I  had  a  letter  from  Dickens  from  Gadshill,  dated  10th 
May,  1868,  announcing  his  return  from  America,  and  pro- 
posing a  meeting  on  ray  return  from  the  country,  where  I 
then  was.  "You  may  suppose  what  arrears  of  business 
of  all  kinds  I  have,"  he  says,  "  and  how  they  are  compli- 
cated by  Wills's  illness  and  absence."  We  met  soon  after. 
He  still  retained  the  sun-browning  which  he  had  gained 
on  the  homeward  voyage,  and  looked  better  than  I  had 
anticipated  after  his  woi'k  and  illness  in  America. 

I  saw  but  little  of  him  during  that  year,  which  was  one 
to  me  of  considerable  anxiety,  and  during  greater  part 
of  which  I  lived  out  of  London.  In  the  spring  of  the  fol- 
lowing year,  '69, 1  was  devoting  some  of  my  annual  leave 
of  absence  from  the  Post-office  to  the  purposes  of  a  little 
lecturing  tour.  Finding  that  on  Monday,  the  12th  April, 
I  was  due  at  Leeds,  and  seeing  from  Dickens's  memoran- 
dum of  reading  engagements,  with  which  he  furnished 
me,  that  he  was  going  to  read  there,  in  the  same  hall,  on 
the  following  night,  I  wrote  asking  whether  we  should 
meet.  He  replied,  proposing  we  should  sup  together  on 
the  Monday  night,  after  my  work. 


who  is  no  longer  living — from  the  crowd  of  applicants.  They  then  asked 
me  if  I  were  prepared  to  give  them  my  whole  time  and  attention,  which  of 
course  meant  giving  up  the  Post-office.  I  therefore  let  them  know  that  I 
could  not  relinquish  my  existing  avocation,  with  which  a  proper  discharge 
of  the  duties  required  by  them  would  not  interfere.  So  they  appointed 
my  rival,  but  immediately  afterwards  discovered  that  he  was  a  Presbyterian, 
and  therefore  ineligible.  The  matter  ended  by  their  paying  him  a  year's 
salary,  and  leaving  the  question  of  starting  the  magazine  in  indefinite 
abeyance. 


300  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Accordingly,  on  my  return  to  the  Queen's  Hotel,  I 
found  Dickens  and  Mr.  Dolby,  who  was  then  his  business 
manager.  Dickens  was  lying  on  a  sofa — he  had  relieved 
himself  of  one  of  his  boots,  and  the  foot  was  swathed  in 
lotioned  bandages.  This  was  the  recurrence  of  a  trouble 
from  which  he  had  suffered  for  some  time,  and  of  which  I 
was  cognizant,  but  I  was  not  prepared  for  the  change  in 
his  appearance  and  manner.  He  looked  desperately  aged 
and  worn  ;  the  lines  in  his  cheeks  and  round  the  eyes, 
always  noticeable,  were  now  deep  furrows  ;  there  was  a 
weariness  in  his  gaze,  and  a  general  air  of  fatigue  and  de- 
pression about  him. 

He  tried  to  rouse,  told  me  of  the  public  dinner  at  Liver- 
pool at  which  he  had  been  entertained  on  the  previous 
Saturday,  under  the  presidency  of  Lord  Dufferin,  laugh- 
ingly alluded  to  a  passage  of  words  he  had  had  with  Lord 
Houghton,  and  praised  a  speech  made  by  Sala.  Then  he 
inquired  about  the  acoustic  properties  of  the  hall  in  which 
I  had  just  lectured,  and  where  he  was  to  read  the  next 
night,  and  gave  certain  orders  for  the  arrangement  of  cur- 
tains there.  But  that  extraordinary  elasticity  of  spirits, 
his  great  characteristic,  seemed  to  have  vanished  ;  he  was 
evidently  wearied  and  in  much  pain,  and  went  early  to 
bed. 

The  next  morning  at  breakfast  he  seemed  much  better, 
and  his  ordinary  cheerfulness  had  returned.  I  had  to  go 
on  to  Sheffield  amid  pouring  rain,  and  Dickens  congratu- 
lated me  on  the  outlook.  "  It  was  just  the  kind  of  day," 
said  he,  "on  which  the  loveliness  of  the  locality  would 
be  seen  to  the  highest  advantage."  We  parted,  and  with- 
in a  week  he  was  stricken  down  at  Preston  ;  had  to  tele- 
graph for  his  medical  attendant,  Mr.  Beard,  under  whoso 
advice,  and  that  of  Sir  Thomas  Watson,  the  readings 
were  entirely  susju'iided  for  a  time. 

Tliis  was  on  tlie  22d  April.  On  the  26th  May,  in  a  let- 
ter to  Earl  Russell,  Dickens  is  "  hap])y  to  report  myself 
quite  well  again."  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  his 
liealth  was  l)y  this  time  wholly  undermined,  and  that  the 
attack  at  Preston  Avas,  as  his  sister-in-law  jihrased  it,  "  the 
b("iiiiiinLr  of  the  end." 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  301 

It  is  curious  to  notice  what  a  hatred  he  had  to  any  pub- 
lic reference  to  the  state  of  his  health  ;  it  amounted  al- 
most to  a  mania.  On  the  3d  September,  1867,  Dickens 
wrote  the  following  jocose  certificate  to  Mr.  F.  D.  Finlay, 
who  had  sent  him  some  newspaper  paragraph  announcing 
bis  illness  : 

"  This  is  to  certify  that  the  undersigned  victim  of  a  periodical  para- 
graph disease,  which  usually  breaks  out  once  in  every  seven  years  (pro- 
ceeding from  England  by  the  overland  route  to  India  and  by  the  Cunard 
line  to  America,  where  it  strikes  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and, 
rebounding  to  Europe,  perishes  on  the  steppes  of  Russia),  is  7iot  'in  a 
critical  state  of  health,'  and  has  not  '  consulted  eminent  surgeons,'  and 
was  never  better  in  his  life,  and  is  not  recommended  to  proceed  to  the 
United  States  'for  cessation  from  literary  labor,'  and  has  not  had  so  much 
as  a  headache  for  twenty  years.  Charles  Dickjens." 

This  is  funny,  but  by  no  means  strictly  accurate. 
Eighteen  months  before,  at  the  end  of  February,  '66, 
Dickens  had  written  to  Forster  :  "  For  some  time  I  have 
been  very  unwell.  F.  B.  [Frank  Beard]  wrote  me  word 
that,  with  such  a  pulse  as  I  described,  an  examination  of 
the  heart  was  absolutely  necessary.  '  Want  of  muscular 
power  in  the  heart,'  B.  said." 

Six  months  before,  on  the  19th  February,  '67,  he  wrote 
to  his  sister-in-law :  "  Yesterday  I  was  so  unwell  with  an 
internal  malady  which  occasionally,  at  long  intervals, 
troubles  me  a  little,  and  it  was  attended  with  the  sudden 
loss  of  so  much  blood,  that  I  wrote  to  F.  B.,  from  whom 
I  shall  doubtless  hear  to-morrow." 

Less  than  one  month  before,  on  the  6th  August,  '67,  he 
writes  to  Forster  :  "  I  am  laid  up  with  another  attack  in 
my  foot,  and  was  on  the  sofa  all  night  in  tortures.  I  can- 
not bear  to  have  the  fomentation  off  for  a  moment.  I 
was  so  ill  with  it  on  Sunday,  and  it  looked  so  fierce,  that 
I  came  up  to  Henry  Thompson.  ,  .  .  Meantime  I  am  on 
my  back  and  chafing." 

There  is  no  one  now,  I  suppose,  who  does  not  recognize 
that  this  pain  in  the  foot  and  lameness  were  gouty  ex- 
pressions of  internal  disorder.  Sir  Henry  Thompson  saw 
this  at  the  time,  and  said  so.  But  Dickens  hated  the  idea 
of  having  the  gout,  and  in  his  old  autocratic  way  refused 


302  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

to  have  it,  and  declared  he  could  not  have  it.  "I  make 
out  so  many  reasons  against  supposing  it  to  be  gouty  that 
I  really  do  not  think  it  is."  And,  with  his  powers  of  per- 
suasion, he  seems  to  have  brought  Mr.  Syme,  an  eminent 
surgeon  of  Edinburgh,  to  his  views,  and  got  him  to  declare 
the  disorder  to  be  "an  affection  of  the  delicate  nerves 
and  muscles,  originating  in  cold."  But  Sir  Henry  Thomp- 
son was  not  to  be  thus  pleasantly  cajoled. 

Never  did  man  wishing  to  deceive  himself  carry  out  his 
object  so  thoroughly  as  Dickens.  One  can  see  the  shoul- 
der-shrug and  the  eyebrow-raising  with  which  he  would 
have  received  the  information  told  of  any  one  else.  He 
has  pain,  inflammation,  every  possible  gouty  symptom  in 
his  foot,  the  chosen  locality  for  gout,  but  it  is  7iot  gout, 
it  is  something  originating  in  cold.  The  same  symptoms 
appear  in  the  other  foot  —  still  not  gout.  As  he  walks 
along  the  streets  one  day,  he  can  read  only  the  halves  of 
the  letters  over  the  shop-doors  that  were  on  his  right  as 
he  looked.  "  He  attributed  it  to  medicine,"  says  Forster. 
It  is  really  almost  too  astonishing. 

Dickens  came  up  to  London,  renting  Mr.  Milncr  Gib- 
son's house,  5  Hyde  Park  Place,  almost  immediately  op- 
posite the  Marble  Arch,  in  January,  1870,  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  his  last  series  of  readings.  We  dined  together 
two  or  three  times,  at  the  Cock  in  Fleet  Street,  where,  I 
suppose,  I  have  been  with  him  a  score  of  times,  and  at 
tlie  Albion  in  Drury  Lane,  in  his  favorite  box  round  the 
corner,  away  from  most  of  the  visitors.  I  also  dined  at 
his  house,  and  was  at  a  large  reception  where  many  well- 
known  people  were  present. 

On  the  11th  March,  when  Dickens  gave  his  final  read- 
ing, and  "  vanished  from  tliose  garish  lights  forever,"  I 
was  with  Mr.  Scudamore  at  Edinburgh,  whence,  from  the 
"instrument- room"  of  the  General  Post-office,!  sent 
Dickens  an  affectionate  message,  which  was  given  to  him 
just  before  he  stepjted  on  to  the  platform,  and  to  which 
he  returned  an  affectionate  rei)ly. 

On  my  return  to  London  we  met  again,  going  that  cir- 
cus expedition  before  mentioned.  Another  meeting  was 
arranged,  but  was  postponed  by  the  following  letter  : 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  30:} 

"5  Hyde  Park  Place,  \V.,  Monday,  Sixteenth  May,  1870. 
"Mt  dear  E.  Y., — Let  us  have  our  little  out  next  month,  after  I  have 
struck  this  tent.     My  foot  has  collared  me  again,  and  has  given  me  great 
pain  :  I  have  not  the  use  of  it  now.  Ever,  C.  D." 

We  never  had  that  "  little  out !"  I  never  saw  hira  again! 
He  was  to  have  taken  his  daughter  to  the  Queen's  Ball  on 
the  11th,  but  was  too  ill ;  he  cancelled  all  his  dinner  en- 
gagements, and  between  that  date  and  the  end  of  the 
month,  when  he  returned  to  Gadshill,  only  dined  out  once, 
at  Lord  Houghton's,  to  meet  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the 
King  of  the  Belgians. 

But  I  heard  from  him  once  more.  I  consulted  him  on 
a  business  matter,  and  received  a  reply,  with  an  enclosure, 
dated  three  days  before  his  fatal  seizure.  And  as  the  one 
shows  his  keen  business  insight,  and  the  other  his  warm 
desire  to  serve  his  friends,  I  give  both: 

"Gad's  Hill  Place,  Hicham  by  Kochester,  Kent," 
"Sunday,  Fifth  June,  1870. 

"  My  dear  Edmund, — I  enclose  you  a  letter  to  Fields's  House.  You  ad- 
dress them  as  Publishers,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  of  America. 

"There  is  this  difficulty  in  the  way.  They  republisli  from  early  proofs 
in  a  weekly  magazine  of  their  own,  called  Every  Saturday.  In  the  case  of 
'Edwin  Drood,'  their  republication  in  those  pages  (tried  with  a  serial,  I 
think,  for  the  first  time),  to  their  own  best  advantage,  would  have  antici- 
pated, as  to  certain  portions,  the  publication  in  England ;  and  consequent- 
ly, as  to  those  jiortions,  would  have  destroyed  the  English  copyright.  This 
I  was  obliged  to  point  out  to  them,  and  forbid.  As  they  had  not  antici- 
pated the  objection,  they  may  find  the  speculation  generally  not  worth 
their  money.  But  I  merely  mention  this  to  you  for  your  private  prepara- 
tion, and  take  no  notice  to  them.  Ever  yours,  C.  D." 

[^Enclosure] 

"  To  Messrs.  Fields,  Osgood  &  Co.  : 

"  My  dear  Sirs, — My  particular  friend  Mr.  Edmund  Yatos  has  asked  rae 
if  I  will  give  him  a  letter  of  introduction  to  you,  advancing — if  I  can — his 
desire  of  disposing  of  early  proofs  for  publication  in  America  of  a  new 
serial  novel  he  is  writing,  called  '  Nobody's  Fortune.' 

"  Mr.  Yates  is  the  most  punctual  and  reliable  of  men  in  the  execution  of 

*  "Why  do  you  have  'Kent'  on  your  note-paper,  sir?"  I  asked  him. 
"Post-office  sorters  always  look  for  the  name  of  the  post-town,  and 
'Rochester'  is  quite  enough."  "Because,  sir,  there  might  be  two  Roches- 
ters,  and  because  some  people  write  so  badly  it  might  be  mistaken  for 
something  else !"  His  delight  may  be  guessed  when  one  day  a  letter  of 
mine  to  him  was  misseut  to  iJorchester. 


304  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

his  work.  I  have  had  the  plan  of  his  story  before  me,  and  have  advi?e  I 
him  upon  it,  and  have  no  doubt  of  its  being  of  great  promise,  and  turning 
upon  a  capital  set  of  incidents.  It  has  not  been  offered  in  America  as  yet, 
I  am  assured.*  Faithfully  yours  always, 

"Charles  Dickens." 

Dickens  was  struck  down  by  apoplexy  —  a  condition 
which  Sir  Thomas  Watson,  on  examination  fourteen 
months  before,  had  foreseen — on  the  8th  June,  and  ex- 
pired twenty-four  hours  later. 

"  The  state  thus  described,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Watson 
after  the  consultation  in  April,  '69,  "showed  plainly  that 
C.  D.  had  been  on  the  brink  of  an  attack  of  paralysis  of 
his  left  side,  and  possibly  of  apoplexy.  It  was,  no  douht, 
the  result  of  extreme  hurry,  overioorh,  and  excitement,  inci- 
dental to  his  readings.'''' 

There  is  the  wise  physician's  opinion  in  his  own  words; 
and  surely  on  reading  it  one  is  almost  justified  in  saying 
that  Dickens's  death  lay  at  his  own  door ;  that  to  a  very 
great  extent  it  was  no  doubt  hastened,  if  not  caused,  by 
his  extraordinary  persistence  in  self-sacrifice.  It  is  im- 
possible for  me  to  believe  that  he  did  not  comprehend 
what  he  was  doing,  and  what  result  all  that  he  did  was 
tending  to  bring  about.  What  would  he  have  thought, 
what  would  he  have  said,  of  any  other  man  who  could 
only  read  half  of  the  letters  of  the  names  over  the  shop- 
doors,  who  "found  himself  extremely  giddy  and  extreme- 
ly uncertain  of  the  sense  of  touch,  both  in  the  left  leg 
and  the  left  hand  and  arm,"  and  Avho  ascribed  those  symp- 
toms to  "  the  effect  of  medicine  ?"  With  what  caustic 
touches  would  he  have  described  a  man  who,  suffering 
under  all  those  symptoms,  and  under  many  others  equally 
significant,  harassed,  worn  out,  yet  travels  and  reads  and 
works  until  he  falls  dead  on  the  roadside  ! 

And,  it  will  be  asked  by  the  generations  to  come — or, 
indeed,  by  the  present  generation  ;  for  one  is  apt  to  for- 
get that  more  than  fourteen  years  have  passed  since  Dick- 
ens died — for  what  purj)()sc,  to  what  end,  were  these  fatal 
labors  undertaken,  these  desperate  exertions  made  ? 

•  The  early  proofs  were  purchased  by  Messr.s.  Fields,  Osgood  &  Co., 
and  tiic  story  was  published  by  them  in  Every  Saturday. 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  3O5 

Not  the  acquisition  of  fame.  For  thirty  years  Charles 
Dickens  had  enjoyed  the  utmost  renown  that  literary  gen- 
ius could  possibly  earn.  His  books  were  read,  his  name 
was  loved  and  honored,  wherever  the  English  language 
was  spoken.  His  Sovereign  had  sent  for  him  to  visit  her, 
and  working-men,  passing  along  the  streets  and  recogniz- 
ing him  by  his  photograph,  would  pull  off  their  hats  and 
give  him  kindly  greeting.  The  sentiments  of  the  entire 
civilized  world  find  expression  in  the  lady  who  stopped 
him  in  the  streets  of  York,  and  said,  "  Mr.  Dickens,  will 
you  let  me  touch  the  hand  that  has  filled  my  house  with 
many  friends  ?"  in  the  warm-hearted  Irishman,  who  ran 
after  him  as  he  hurried  to  the  Belfast  hotel,  and  asked 
him  to  "  Do  me  the  honor  to  shake  hands,  Mr.  Dickens ; 
and  God  bless  you,  sir,  not  only  for  the  light  you've  been 
to  me  this  night,  but  for  the  light  you've  been  in  my 
house,  sir  (and  God  love  your  face !),  this  many  a  year !" 
To  what  mortal  man  has  been  meted  out  fame  and  honor 
and  personal  affectionate  regard  in  greater  measure  than 
this? 

Not  for  the  acquisition  of  money  ;  at  least  one  would 
think  not,  when  one  learns  from  Mr.  Forster  that  Dick- 
ens's real  and  personal  estates  amounted,  as  nearly  as  may 
be  calculated,  to  £93,000  ! 

Of  this,  £20,000  were  made  in  America,  and  the  odd 
£13,000  derived  from  the  sale  of  his  house,  pictures,  etc.  ; 
so  that  we  may  take  it  he  was  worth,  before  his  visit  to 
America,  some  £60,000.  This,  in  round  numbers,  would 
bring  in  £2500  a  year  ;  his  periodical  must  have  been 
worth  another  £2500  ;  while  a  new  book  must  have  earned 
him  something  like  £10,000.* 

With  such  an  income  and  an  expenditure  which  was 
generous  but  not  lavish,  there  was,  so  far  as  an  outsider 

*  The  price  paid  down  by  Mr.  Chapman  for  "  Edwin  Drood,"  calculated 
on  a  sale  of  25,000  copies,  was  £7500,  publisher  and  author  sharing  equal- 
ly in  the  profit  of  all  sales  beyond  that  impression  ;  and  the  number 
reached,  while  the  author  yet  lived,  w-as  50,000.  Messrs.  Fields  &  Os- 
good paid  £1000  for  the  early  sheets  for  America,  and,  in  addition,  there 
was  Baron  Tauchnitz's  check,  amount  unknown,  but  sure  to  be  liberal,  for 
his  Leipsic  edition. 


306  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

could  see,  every  means  for  providing  comfort  and  luxury, 
no  occasion  for  alarm  even  when  the  bread-winner  should 
have  ceased  to  exist  ;  certainly  no  occasion  for  the  daily 
and  nightly  labor,  the  constant  travel,  the  superhuman  ex- 
ertions, the  frightful  wear  and  tear  which  brought  his  ex- 
istence to  a  premature  close. 

Though  I  have  raised  the  question,  I  believe  the  answer 
to  be  comparatively  simple  and  the  explanation  common- 
place. It  may  be  that  if  Dickens  had  not  exerted  him- 
self— had  not,  to  use  a  common  expression,  taken  so  much 
out  of  himself — as  he  did  during  the  last  few  years  of 
his  life,  he  might,  at  the  present  moment,  have  been  a  hale 
and  hearty  man — indeed,  a  young  man,  as  youth  is  judged 
nowadays — of  seventy-two  years.  But  the  conditions  of 
existence  are  prescribed  by  that  constitutional  fatalism 
known  as  temperament.  Dickens  was  not  only  a  genius, 
but  he  had  the  volcanic  activity,  the  perturbed  restless- 
ness, the  feverish  excitability  of  genius.  What  he  created 
that  he  was.  His  personages  were,  as  readers  of  his  let- 
ters know,  an  integral  part  of  his  life.  Nor  were  the  en- 
thusiasm and  intensity  which  he  experienced  in  his  daily 
business  less  remarkable.  The  meditative  life,  the  facul- 
ty of  a  judicious  resting,  the  power  of  self-detachment 
from  contemporary  events  which  enables  so  many  of  our 
octogenarians  to  be  comparatively  juvenile,  had  no  charm 
for  him.  To  him  old  age  would  never  have  brought  tran- 
quillity, and  therefore  it  may  be  said  that  old  age  would 
never  have  arrived.  It  was  a  law  of  his  existence  that  his 
foot  should  be  always  in  the  stirrup  and  his  sword  always 
unsheathed.  lie  had,  moreover,  as  I  have  above  exj)lainedj 
a  chivalrous  regard  to  the  public.  He  Avas  their  devoted 
servant,  and  he  was  anxious  to  spend  his  life-blood  in  their 
cause.  Consequently,  even  when  lie  knew  his  power  as  a 
novelist  was  on  the  wane — according  to  Forster  it  had, 
indeed,  been  on  the  wane  so  far  back  as  the  days  of  "  Bleak 
House " — he  determined  to  seek  a  new  sphere,  and  one 
which  to  his  histricMiie  tcni|»cr;iinent  was  singularly  con- 
geniiiljin  his  readings.  'I'liis  I  holievc  to  be  the  true  ac- 
count of  the  reasons  which  weighed  with  him  in  selecting 
that  arduous  ordeal  which  brought  his  life  to  its  prcuia- 


A  DICKENS  CHAPTER.  307 

ture  close.  Other  reasons  of  a  more  melodramatic  and 
sensational  character  might  be  cited,  but  it  is  my  convic- 
tion that  they  would  be  less  to  be  trusted. 

One  word  more.  In  regard  to  the  friendship  which 
Dickens  vouchsafed  me,  I  have  been  frequently  asked, 
"  Did  he  come  up  to  the  expectations  you  had  formed  of 
him  ?  Was  Dickens  the  man  as  lovable  as  Dickens  the 
author  ?"     And  I  have  always  replied,  "  Yes  ;  wholly." 

All  the  kindness  of  heart,  geniality,  generosity,  appre- 
ciation of  whatever  could  be  appreciated  in  others,  manly 
independence,  hatred  of  humbug,  all  the  leading  qualities 
of  his  books  were  component  parts  of  his  nature.  For 
one  holding  a  position  so  unique  in  the  world  he  was  won- 
derfully modest  ;  and  while  he  always  quietly  and  unos- 
tentatiously asserted  his  own  dignity,  I  never  saw  the 
smallest  appearance  of  "  putting  on  airs."  His  expressed 
dislike  to  allow  his  daughters  to  play  before  the  Court  as 
amateur  actresses,  his  repeated  refusal  of  the  Queen's  re- 
quests that  he  would  come  round  after  an  amateur  per- 
formance and  be  presented  to  her,  he  being  in  his  theatri- 
cal costume,  were  evidences  of  this  self-respect ;  and  his 
belief  in,  and  assertion  of,  the  dignity  of  his  calling  were 
just  as  marked.  Any  foothold  on  the  literary  ladder,  no 
matter  how  low,  had  its  interest  for  him.  "  I  do  not 
plead  as  a  stranger,"  he  said,  at  the  Newspaper  Press 
Fund  ;  "I  hold  a  brief  for  my  brothers  ;"  and  then  plunged 
into  some  delightful  stories  of  his  reporting  days. 

What  he  was  to  the  world  the  world  knows  ;  to  me 
he  was  the  most  charming  of  companions,  the  kindest  of 
friends. 

"  I  weep  a  loss  forever  new, 

A  void  where  heart  on  heart  reposed  ; 
And  where  warm  hands  have  pressed  and  closed 
Silence,  till  I  be  silent  too. 

"  I  weep  the  comrade  of  my  choice, 
An  awful  thought,  a  life  removed, 
The  human-hearted  man  I  loved, 
A  Bpirit,  not  a  breathing  voice." 


308  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

PEOPLE    I    HAVE   KNOWN. 

I  HAD  the  honor  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  late  Lord 
Chief- justice  of  England,  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn, 
which  extended  over  some  years,  and  was  to  me  the 
source  of  much  pleasure.  A  better  talker,  with  a  sweeter 
voice,  cannot  be  imagined:  matter  and  manner  were  both 
excellent.  He  had  lived  so  long,  so  much,  and  with  such 
people  that  his  experiences  were  as  unique  as  the  way  in 
which  he  told  them. 

I  first  met  him  at  Lady  Fife's  in  Cavendish  Square,  in 
the  year  '67,  to  my  great  delight ;  for  I  had  heard  much 
of  him  from  Dickens,  and  had  long  admired  him  from  a 
distance.  The  next  week  I  dined  with  him  at  his  house 
in  Hertford  Street  with  a  small  party.  His  dinners  were 
excellent,  though  not  elaborate,  and  be  the  rest  of  the 
■menu  what  it  might,  a  joint  of  cold  roast-beef  always  prom- 
inently figured  therein ;  he  drank  little  wine  himself,  but 
gave  much  and  good  to  his  friends,  and  as  a  host  he  shone 
pre-eminent.  As  Mr.  Disraeli  said  in  the  course  of  his 
notable  reply  to  Dr.  Kenealy  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
"The  Lord  Chief  -  justice  is  not  a  man  who  enters  our 
drawing-rooms  with  an  air  of  adamantine  gravity."  Nor 
did  he  assume  such  an  air  as  he  sat  at  the  head  of  his 
own  table,  the  model  of  a  host  in  his  mien  and  bearing, 
with  all  the  vivacity  of  youth  tempered  by  the  wisdom 
of  age. 

When  the  other  guests  left,  Sir  Alexander,  to  my  de- 
light, invited  me  to  remain  for  a  cigar  and  a  chat.  We 
adjourned  to  the  library,  a  cosy  room  lined  with  books 
on  all  sides  from  floor  to  ceiling,  Avhere  his  home-work 
was  done.  I  took  occasion  to  refer  to  the  great  Palmer 
trial,  where   he  had    conducted    the   prosecution,  and    of 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  309 

which  I  knew  from  Dickens  he  had  most  interesting 
anecdotes.  My  allusion  had  the  desired  effect,  and  my 
host  started  off  at  once. 

I  listened  to  his  wonderful  story  of  the  case,  from  its 
commencement  to  its  close :  how  he,  then  Attorney-gen- 
eral, read  the  notes  of  the  proceedings  and  of  the  earlier 
examinations,  and  became  convinced,  not  merely  of  Palm- 
er's guilt,  but  of  the  manner  in  which  the  crime  was  car- 
ried out;  how  he  worked  night  and  day  in  studying  the 
effects  of  various  poisons,  and  finally  submitted  himself  to 
an  examination  by  friendly  experts  to  prove  that  he  had 
mastered  the  subject;  how  he  elected  to  have  the  prisoner 
tried  on  Cook's  case,  though  it  was  the  weakest  of  the 
several  indictments  which  he  could  have  brought  for- 
ward, feeling  certain  that  if  he  failed  to  hang  Palmer  for 
the  murder  of  Cook  he  would  indubitably  convict  him 
for  the  murder  of  his  wife.  I  remember  his  telling  me 
how,  having  been  called  away  by  his  duties  as  Attorney- 
general  to  Westminster,  he  returned  to  the  Old  Bailey 
as  Lord  Campbell  was  summing  up,  and  looking  down 
from  a  gallery  into  the  court,  "  I  knew,"  said  he,  "  by 
the  look  of  John  Campbell's  face  that  Palmer  was  a  dead 
man." 

It  was  in  connection  with  the  Palmer  trial  that  he  told 
me  he  experienced  what  he  considered  the  greatest  com- 
pliment ever  paid  to  him.  Palmer  was  in  the  habit,  as  he 
stood  in  the  dock,  of  writing  instructions  or  suggestions 
to  his  attorney,  Mr.  Smith,  screwing  them  up  into  little 
pellets,  and  tossing  them  over  to  their  destination.  One 
of  these,  which  he  wrote  immediately  after  the  verdict 
of  guilty  had  been  pronounced  by  the  jury,  was  after- 
wards handed  to  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn.  It  merely  con- 
tained these  words :  "  It's  the  riding  that  has  done  it ;" 
conveying  thereby,  in  sporting  metaphor,  which  Palmer 
was  constantly  using,  the  prisoner's  opinion  that  it  was 
solely  due  to  the  Attorney-general's  conduct  of  the  case 
that  the  verdict  against  him  had  been  obtained. 

One  more  anecdote  in  connection  with  this  subject  is 
in  my  mind.  "I  remember,"  said  Cockburn,  leaning  back 
in  his  chair  and  laughing,  "  an  article  which  appeared  in 


310  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  LONDON   UFE. 

one  of  the  picture  -  papers  —  not  the  Illustrated  London 
News,  I  fancy,  but  another  —  which  gave  portraits  and 
personal  descriptions  of  all  engaged  in  the  trial — judges, 
counsel,  prisoners,  and  all.  The  portraits  were,  as  usual, 
not  to  be  recognized,  but  the  letter-press  was  exceedingly- 
impudent  and  very  amusing.     Some  of  the  phrases  were 

excellent.     *  was  spoken  of,  I  recollect,  as  '  the  buck 

of  the  Bar,'  a  term  which  fitted  him  exactly.  I  never 
knew  who  wrote  it."  "Permit  me,"  said  I,  rising,  and 
pointing  to  myself  with  a  low  bow,  "  to  introduce  to  you 
that  distinguished  journalist!"! 

One  night,  after  a  tUe-d-tUe  dinner  in  Hertford  Street, 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  accompanying  Sir  Alexander  to  one 
of  Dickens's  readings.  The  subjects  were  the  "  Christmas 
Carol  "  and  "  The  Trial  from  '  Pickwick.'  "  With  the  first 
Cockburn  was  heartily  delighted,  laughing  and — almost — 
crying  ;  but  the  delivery  of  the  trial  affected  him  very 
differently.  He  pish'd  and  psha'd  throughout  ;  he  was, 
I  think,  annoyed  at  being  recognized  and  stared  at  by 
people  who  wanted  to  see  how  he  took  the  points,  and 
particularly  the  imitation  of  the  judge ;  and  at  the  con- 
clusion he  stigmatized  the  performance  as  "perfectly 
ridiculous  —  a  mere  broad  farce  or  exaggerated  panto- 
mime." 

I  have  a  note  of  another  delightful  dinner  with  the 
Lord  Chief  some  years  later,  in  May,  '75,  when  were  pres- 
ent Lord  Kenmare,  Lord  Elcho,  Lord  Camoys,  the  Span- 
ish Ambassador,  Sir  Henry  Pelly,  Mr.  Delane,  Mr.  Hay- 
ward,  Mr.  Benjamin,  Q.C.,  Mr.  Waddy,  Q.C.,  and  Cai)tain 
Cockburn.  On  this  occasion  I  was  again  happily  detained 
by  Sir  Alexander  till  1  a.m.,  part  of  his  most  interesting 
talk  being  devoted  to  a  life -history  of  Edwin  James. 
We  also  talked  of  my  old  Hcliool-ft'llow  Richard  Betliell, 
second  Lord  Wcstbiiry,  who  was  just  dead,  and  of  his 
father,  the  first  lord,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  of  whom  Cock- 


*  Now  a  judge. 

f  The  reference  was  to  some  "graphie"  sketches  of  events  and  occur- 
rences at  the  Palmer  trial,  whicli  in  my  early  days  I  had  written  for  the 
Illustrated  Times. 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  311 

burn  told  several  excellent  stories,  among  them  the  fol- 
lowing : 

Sir  Richard  Bethell,  being  Attorney  -  general,  and  Sir 
Alexander  Cockburn,  being  Solicitor -general,  had  occa- 
sion to  discuss  some  important  legal  reform  which  was 
to  be  brought  before  Parliament ;  and  the  former  sug- 
gested that  it  should  be  talked  over  at  his  seat,  Hackwood 
Park,  near  Basingstoke.  There,  accordingly,  Cockburn 
visited  him,  and  on  the  first  morning  they  and  Dick  Beth- 
ell, the  eldest  son,  went  out  shooting.  There  were  very 
few  pheasants,  but  after  they  had  been  out  a  little  time 
a  terrific  howl  was  heard  from  one  of  the  keepers,  who 
had  been  badly  shot.  A  warm  altercation,  carried  on  in 
strong  language,  occurred  between  the  two  Bethells,  fa- 
ther and  son,  each  accusing  the  other  of  having  shot  the 
man.  Cockburn  took  an  opportunity  of  asking  the  keep- 
er by  which  of  his  masters  he  had  been  shot,  and  got  the 

reply,  "  D n  'em!  both  of  'em!"    Next  term-time  there 

was  a  meeting  of  legal  dignitaries  about  this  question  of 
reform.  Sir  Richard  Bethell  opened  the  proceedings  by 
saying  that  he  had  given  the  question  careful  attention, 
and  was  glad  to  say  that  his  learned  friend,  the  Solicitor- 
general,  to  whom  he  had  explained  his  views,  was  of  his 
way  of  thinking.  On  Cockburn's  demurring  gently,  and 
saying  he  did  not  recollect  the  discussion  having  taken 
place.  Sir  Richard  said,  in  his  most  mincing  and  affected 
tones,  "You  must  recollect  it,  my  dear  friend:  it  occurred 
the  morning  you  shot  my  keeper  r'' 

Just  before  I  left,  I  was  talking  to  Sir  Alexander  about 
his  having  given  up  hunting,  and  he  told  me  a  good  horse- 
story  :  A  man  saw  a  very  handsome  chestnut  horse  at 
Horncastle  Fair,  and  was  astonished  at  the  lowness  of  the 
price  asked  for  it.  After  some  chaffering  he  became  the 
purchaser,  taking  it  without  warranty  or  anything  else  ; 
and  having  paid  his  money,  he  gave  a  "tip"  of  five  shil- 
lings to  the  groom,  and  asked  him  what  was  really  the 
matter  with  the  animal  that  he  should  be  sold  so  cheap. 
The  man,  after  some  hesitation,  declared  that  the  horse 
w^as  a  perfect  animal  with  the  exception  of  two  faults. 
"Two  faults!"  said  the  purchaser;  "avcII,  tell  me  one  of 


312  FIFTY   YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

them."  "One  is,"  said  the  man,  "that  when  you  turn 
him  into  a  field  he  is  very  difficult  to  catch."  "That," 
said  the  purchaser,  "  is  no  harm  to  me,  as  I  make  a  point 
of  always  keeping  my  horses  in  the  stable,  and  never 
turning  them  into  the  field.  Now  of  the  other?"  "The 
other,"  said  the  man,  scratching  his  head,  and  looking  sly- 
ly up — "the  other  is  that  when  you  have  caught  him  he 
is  not  worth  a  rap  !" 

The  Lord  Chief  held  but  a  poor  opinion  of  his  judicial 
brethren,  nor  did  he  rate  highly  the  abilities  of  any  of  the 
leading  members  of  the  Bar,  with  the  exception  of  Mr. 
Benjamin,  of  whom  he  always  spoke  very  highly.  He 
had  some  good  Bar  stories,  for  only  two  of  which  I  can 
find  space.  One  was  of  a  very  prosy  advocate,  who,  plead- 
ing before  a  full  bench,  was" constantly  repeating  his  argu- 
ment.    "  I  am  sorry  to  interrupt  you,  Mr. ,"  at  length 

said  the  senior  judge,  "  but  you  have  already  advanced 
that  argument  twice,  and  it  is  useless  your  doing  so  again," 
"But  there  are  three  of  your  lordships,"  said  the  barrister. 

Of  the  other  story  the  dramatis  personcv  are  all  living, 
so  that  I  must  "  dissemble  "  as  regards  their  names.  One 
day  a  Mr.  Ruf us  Rightly  (who  is  known  in  the  profession 
as  Mr.  Rather  Wrongly),  in  an  argument  before  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Littleton  (a  very  good  man  and  a  clever  lawyer,  though 
somewhat  soft),  had  put  certain  questions  which  were  ob- 
jected to  by  the  opposite  side,  and  which  Mr.  Justice  Lit- 
tleton accordingly  held  over  until  he  had  consulted  his 
learned  brother  in  the  other  court.  This  happened  to  be 
Lord  Coke,  who,  on  hearing  the  question,  asked  who  had 
put  it,  and  on  being  told  Mr.  Rufus  Riglitly,  said,  '"  Oh, 
I  should  certainly  not  allow  it;  and,  my  dear  Littleton,  as 
a  general  rule  I  would  never  allow  any  question  which 
that  gentleman  may  put,  and  which  may  be  objected  to." 
Mr.  Justice  Littleton  returiuul  into  court  after  luncheon, 
and,  when  the  case  was  renewed,  said,  "Oli,  Mr.  Rightly,  I 
have  taken  the  opinion  of  my  learned  brother  on  the  ob- 
jections which  you  have  raised  in  this  case,  and  I  have  de- 
cided not  to  allow  them ;  and  I  may  as  well  tell  you  that 
m  any  other  case  in  which  you  may  raise  objections^  I 
have  decided  not  to  allow  them  /" 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  313 

Cockbiirn  was  passionately  fond  of  music,  and  the  lead- 
ing professors  of  the  art  were  constant  visitors  at  his 
house,  notabl}^  Herr  Joachim,  who  always  paid  one  of  his 
first  visits  in  Hertford  Street  after  his  annual  arrival  in 
England,  and  who  was  to  be  found  there  constantly  dur- 
ing his  stay.  The  late  Mrs.  Sartoris  (Adelaide  Kemble) 
was  also  one  of  Sir  Alexander's  favorite  guests;  and  the 
sympathetic  qualities  of  her  lovely  voice  never  seem  to 
have  lost  their  effect  on  him.  Mrs.  Nassau  Senior  and 
Mrs.  Rudolf  Lehmann  were  also  frequently  to  be  heard 
in  the  somewhat  gaunt  and  gloomy  drawing-room,  which 
certainly  lacked  every  possible  evidence  of  a  woman's 
care.  At  one  time  Cockburn  was  a  constant  attendant  at 
the  Monday  Popular  Concerts,  but  of  late  years  he  had 
given  up  going  there. 

Among  the  habituh  of  Hertford  Street  were  Mr.  Henry 
Calcraft,  Dr.  Quin,  Lord  Sherbrooke,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Priest- 
ley, and  Charles  Halle ;  and  Cockburn  had  a  life  -  long 
friendship  with  the  well-known  Eton  master,  the  late 
Rev.  W.  G.  Cookesley.* 

Although  Sir  Alexander  never  posed  for  a  wit,  he  was 
very  smart  and  ready.  "  I  wanted  to  ask  you  a  question 
this  morning,"  I  said  to  him  one  day  at  dinner,  "  but  you 
were  on  the  bench.  Are  you  get-at-able  by  a  note  there  ?" 
"  Do  you  mean  a  five-pound  note  ?"  he  asked,  instantly. 

He  retained  to  the  last  his  happy  power  for  repartee. 
In  reply  to  a  remark  made  by  some  one  only  the  week  be- 
fore his  death  as  to  Ireland  being  a  "  God-forsaken  coim- 
try,"  Sir  Alexander  immediately  retorted,  "It  is  not  at 
present  so  much  a  *  God-forsaken '  as  a  '  Government-for- 
saken' country." 

His  devotion  to  work  may  be  estimated  by  the  fact 
that,  after  a  medical  consultation,  held  nearly  two  years 
before  his  death,  he  was  plainly  informed  that  his  disease 
had  reached  such  a  point  that  he  might  die  at  any  time 
without   a   moment's  notice.      His  retirement  from  the 


*  I  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  Mr.  Cookesley,  a  very  charming  man : 
he  was  intimate  with  Mr.  Disraeli,  from  whom  he  received  the  living  of 
Tempsford,  and  there  was  a  curious  likeness  between  him  and  Cockburn. 

14 


314  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON  LIFE. 

bench  was  advised  by  his  friends  and  his  medical  man  ; 
and  it  was  suggested,  as  an  alternative,  that  he  might 
prolong  life  by  devoting  himself  to  his  favorite  amuse- 
ment of  yachting  and  a  mild  course  of  literary  labor,  for 
the  purpose  of  putting  into  shape  his  legal,  political,  liter- 
ary, and  social  reminiscences.  The  Chief- justice,  however, 
would  not  hear  of  retirement,  and  on  each  of  the  three 
occasions  on  which  he  was  seized  with  disease  of  the 
heart,  returned  to  work  without  the  needful  rest  for  recu- 
peration. 

He  had  been  ailing  and  failing,  for  he  was  in  his  seventy- 
ninth  year,  but  his  death  was  almost  sudden.  On  Satur- 
day afternoon,  the  20th  November,  1880,  the  Lord  Chief- 
justice  walked  home  from  court,  feeling  much  as  usual, 
but,  as  the  event  jjroved,  for  the  last  time.  When  his 
servant  took  him  up  his  whiskey-and-water  about  eleven 
o'clock,  he  complained  of  not  feeling  Avell.  Shortly  after 
this  he  rang  his  bell,  and  died  in  ten  minutes,  the  butler 
alone  being  present. 

On  Sunday,  7th  October,  1877, 1  had  the  honor  of  being 
presented  to  Lord  Beaconsfield  at  Brighton.  I  was 
walking  in  the  afternoon  on  the  green  esplanade  opposite 
Brunswick  Terrace,  and  saw  the  Premier  leaning  on  Mr. 
Corry's  arm.  I  nodded  to  Mr.  Corry,  who  presently  ran 
after  me,  saying,  "I  want  to  present  you  to  the  Prime- 
minister."  Lord  Beaconsfield,  who  wore  a  long  great-coat 
and  curly-brimmed  hat,  raised  his  hat  in  the  old-fashioned 
way,  receiving  me  very  graciously.  He  shook  hands,  say- 
ing, "Very  glad  to  make  your  acquaintance,  Mr.  Yates; 
hitherto  I  have  only  known  you  by  reputation."  He  mo- 
tioned that  I  should  fall  in  by  his  side,  and  he  walked 
between  Mr.  Corry  and  myself  up  and  down.  Ho  e.\- 
jiressed  himself  ;is  much  sti'uck  by  tlie  brightness  of  the 
place,  he  himself  liaving  just  come  "from  the  middle  of 
the  country,  where  the  fall  of  the  leaf  made  everytliiiig 
very  dreary."  In  his  young  days,  he  said,  the  Steiiie  had 
been  the  great  place  for  pronieiiadc,  l)Ut  this  walk  by  the 
side  of  tlie  sea  was  certainly  jtrcfi'iable. 

Mr.  Corry  then  questioned  me  about  the  vacant  editor- 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  315 

ship  of  the  Times,  saying  it  was  impossible  there  should 
be  truth  in  the  rumor  that  the  post  had  been  offered  to 

Mr. .    Lord  Beaconsfield  agreed,  saying  that had 

some  qualifications  for  the  post,  but  not  all  that  were  req- 
uisite. He  then  asked  me  about  Mr.  Chenery,  whose  ap- 
pointment as  successor  to  Mr.  Delane  had  been  notified  in 
the  World.  Lord  Beaconsfield  said  he  had  heard  "that 
he  held  a  chair  of  Arabic  somewhere,"  but  he  did  not  con- 
sider that  a  very  essential  qualification  for  the  editor  of 
the  Times.  I  ventured  to  traverse  this  statement,  and  told 
him  that  Mr.  Chenery  was  an  excellent  journalist,  and  had 
twenty  years'  experience  of  the  traditions  of  Printing- 
house  Square.  "  But  is  he  versed  in  social  diplomacy  like 
Mr.  Delane?  —  that  is  an  important  part  of  his  duties," 
said  Lord  Beaconsfield.  I  only  said  in  reply  that  Mr. 
Chenery  could  and  did — as  was  most  assuredly  the  case — 
make  himself  very  agreeable  in  society. 

We  spoke  of  Dickens.  I  mentioned  that  Dickens  had 
told  me  of  his  meeting  Lord  Beaconsfield  (then  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli) at  dinner ;  this  was  only  a  few  weeks  before  Dick- 
ens's death.  I  told  Lord  Beaconsfield  that,  in  mentioning 
the  circumstance  to  me,  Dickens  had  said,  "What  a  de- 
lightful man  he  is !  what  an  extrilordinary  pity  it  is  that 
he  should  ever  have  giveil '  up  literature  for  politics  !" 
This,  as  I  expected,  seemed  to  amuse  Lord  Beaconsfield 
very  much.  He  said,  "I  remember  the  occasion  perfect- 
ly; it  was  at  Lord  Stanhope's.  I  was  one  day  mention- 
ing to  him  my  regret  at  having  seen  so  little  of  Mr.  Dick- 
ens, and  he  said,  'He  is  coming  to  dine  here  next  week ; 
come  and  meet  him.'     I  went,  and  sat  next  to  Dickens." 

Lord  Beaconsfield  spoke  of  the  charm  of  Dickens's  con- 
versation, his  brightness,  and  his  humor ;  and  I  remarked 
I  had  always  held  that  Dickens  was  an  exception  to  the 
general  rule  of  authors  being  so  much  less  interesting 
than  their  books.  I  asked  Lord  Beaconsfield  whether  it 
was  not  in  his  experience  that  many  men,  of  whose  pow- 
ers of  conversation  he  had  heard  much,  jiroved,  on  meet- 
ing them,  to  be  by  no  means  beyond  the  average. 

"That  is  rather  a  wide  field,"  he  said.  "Perhaps,  on 
the  whole,  you  are  right ;  but  I  can  easily  understand  that 


316  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

you,  or  any  other  clever  man,  finding  yourself  in  the  com- 
pany of  a  professional  writer,  and  having  a  smart  thing 
on  the  tip  of  your  tongue,  might  hesitate  to  give  it  utter- 
ance, saying  to  yourself,  'If  I  say  that,  this  d d  fel- 
low will  put  it  into  his  article.' " 

These  were  Lord  Beaconsfield's  ipsissima  verba;  and 
now  that  he  is  gone,  and  that  there  can  be  no  harm,  this 
"  d d  fellow  "  has  done  so. 

THE    "punch"   staff. 

Punch  is  exactly  ten  years  younger  than  I  am,  and  I 
can  well  recollect  its  first  number.  I  was  with  my  mother 
when  my  father  brought  it  to  her,  saying,  "  Here  is  Stir- 
ling Coyne's  new  paper."  From  what  I  have  since  heard 
and  read  I  should  imagine  Mr,  Coyne's  connection  with  it 
cannot  have  been  very  close  or  have  endured  very  long. 
His  wit  and  humor  were  fully  up  to  the  average  of  the 
early  numbers  ;  but  when  an  improvement  took  place,  and 
Punch  gradually  settled  down  to  its  stride,  Coyne's  not 
very  excellent  farce- jokes  must  have  been  found  out  of 
place. 

Those  who  are  interested  in  the  early  fortunes  of  the 
periodical  will  find  them  set  forth  in  a  little  book  called 
"  Mr.  Punch,  his  Origin  and  Career,"  which  is  easily  ob- 
tainable :  they  seem  to  have  been  of  tlie  usual  pattern — 
start,  struggle,  imminent  bankruptcy,  purchase  by  a  new 
proprietary,  and  ultimate  success.  Tlie  idea  was  that  of 
a  Mr.  Last,  a  printer  ;  the  name  was  suggested  by  Mr. 
Henry  Mayhew,  who  was  for  some  time  co-editor  witli 
Mr.  Mark  Lemon  ;  and  among  tlie  earliest  members  of 
the  staff  were  Douglas  Jerrold,  Gilbert  i  Beckett,  Horace 
Mayliew,  W.  H.  Wills,  and  Albert  Smith.  From  the  two 
last  my  personal  knowledge  of  the  early  days  of  Punch  was 
derived. 

When  I  first  knew  anylliiiig  of  the  inner  life  of  the  pe- 
riodical, Makk  Lkmon  was  its  editor.  Quxi.  ])ersonal  ap- 
jx'arance  he  was  inade  for  llie  part.  C'orpulent,  jovial, 
briglit-eyed,  with  a  hearty  laugh  and  an  air  of  bonhmnie, 
ho  rolled  through  life  the  outward  iinporsoiiation  of  jolli- 
ty and   good-teni])er.      Of  his  early  career  but  little  was 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  317 

known.  He  was  mucli  associated  with  actors,  and,  I  im- 
agine, had  been  one  of  them.  It  is  certain  that  he  had 
been  a  publican,  keeping  among  other  taverns  one  in 
Wych  Street,  called  "The  Shakspeare,"  Avhere  Albert 
Smith  had  seen  him,  rubbing  his  hands  in  his  usual  efflo- 
rescent manner,  and  crying,  "More  steaks,  gentlemen  ! 
coming  directly  !" 

He  had  no  verbal  Avit,  but  he  was  an  extraordinarily 
funny  man,  full  of  ridiculous  ideas,  Avhich  he  would  carry 
out  in  a  most  humorous  manner.  As  Hans  Christian  An- 
dersen once  said  to  me,  after  seeing  Lemon  go  through 
some  amusing  tomfoolery  at  a  garden-party  at  Fulham, 
"  Mr.  Lemon  is  most  excellent  full  of  comic."  Save  in 
dramatic  composition,  where  he  excelled  —  I  have  in  a 
previous  chapter  mentioned  his  "Domestic  Economy," 
"  Hearts  are  Trumps,"  etc.  —  his  original  attempts  were 
nothing  worth.  Late  in  life  he  took  to  novel-writing,  but 
made  nothing  of  it,  and  his  songs  and  ballads,  which  he 
turned  out  to  order,  were  desperate  productions. 

But  Mark  Lemon  made  an  excellent  editor  of  Punch. 
He  was  a  Jew,  as  his  prmom  and  surname  sufficiently 
testify,  and  had  all  the  keen  appreciation  of  that  quick- 
witted race.  He  was  patient  and  long-suffering  where  his 
interest  was  concerned,  and  could  bear  without  resent- 
ment a  slight  from  Thackeray  or  a  snub  from  Leech,  He 
had  a  great  power  of  shaking  hands,  always  impressing 
the  owner  of  the  hand  shaken  that  he  (the  shaker)  was, 
by  the  process,  covered  with  glory  and  steeped  in  delight. 
But  with  all  this  he  was,  when  occasion  required,  a  man  of 
firm  will,  kept  his  team  together  with  a  strong  hand,  knew 
what  each  man  could  do  best  and  made  him  do  it,  and  thor- 
oughly understood  the  public  for  which  he  had  to  cater. 

Lemon  died  in  harness  in  1870,  and  was  succeeded  by 
Shirley  Bkooks,  who  had  long  been  his  right-hand  man 
and  shrewdest  counsellor.  In  such  a  position  Brooks  was 
invaluable:  his  fertility  of  resource  was  matchless;  he 
suggested  cartoons  for  the  artists,  found  titles  for  the 
cartoons,  wrote  the  "  Essence  of  Parliament,"  and  never 
missed  a  suitable  subject  or  a  seizable  point. 


318  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

Shirley  Brooks  was  the  son  of  an  architect,  and  was 
brought  up  as  a  solicitor ;  but  he  hated  the  law,  and  soon 
took  to  literature.  For  several  years  his  life  was  that  of 
every  respectable  literary  man,  nothing  but  the  prosy  tale 
of  sheer  industry  gradually  acquiring  lucrative  employ- 
ment. He  always  brought  the  business  element  into  his 
work,  and  considered  that  he  was  as  much  bound  to  sup- 
ply "  copy  "  at  the  specified  time  as  he  would  have  been, 
in  his  law  days,  to  deliver  a  brief  before  the  hearing.  As 
soon  as  he  could  swim  without  the  corks  of  law  he  let 
them  float  away,  and  managed  to  keep  his  head  up,  not, 
however,  \vithout  more  struggle  than  would  be  pleasant 
to,  or  even  good  for,  everybody.  But  the  world  comes  to 
eveiy  one  who  will  wait — and  work  ;  and  it  came  to  him. 

Introduced  to  Mr.  Douglas  Cook,  then  editing  the  Morn- 
ing Chronicle,  which  was  flickering  brilliantly  before  it 
finally  went  out.  Brooks,  in  some  literary  reviews  which 
he  wrote,  showed  such  knowledge  and  acumen  tliat  on 
the  important  oflice  of  summary  writer  in  the  House  of 
Commons  falling  vacant  it  was  given  to  him. 

At  the  time  of  his  aj^pointment  he  had  never  heard  a 
debate  in  his  life,  but  he  soon  learned  his  work,  and  con- 
tinued at  it  for  five  sessions,  during  which  time  it  was  im- 
possible for  such  a  man,  who  really  minded  and  cared  for 
his  business,  not  to  pick  up  a  great  quantity  of  miscella- 
neous as  well  as  political  knowledge,  of  all  of  which  he 
afterwards  availed  himself. 

Early  in  his  connection  with  the  Chronicle  its  directors 
resolved  upon  a  widely-spread  investigation  into  the  con- 
dition of  the  agricultural  classes  on  the  Continent  and  else- 
where. To  Mr.  Angus  Reach  was  allotted  the  inquiry  into 
this  class  in  France;  and  in  that  delightful  work,  "Claret 
and  Olives,"  may  be  seen  how  admirably  he  discharged 
his  task.  To  Mr.  Shirley  Brooks  was  offered  a  simihir 
mission  in  the  south  of  Russia,  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt. 
He  gladly  accepted  it,  and  made  a  tour  of  six  months,  col- 
lecting the  desired  materials.  His  letters  duly  a])peared 
ill  the  Chronicle,  and  the  Russian  portion  of  them,  to 
whicli  much  .'Utcntion  was  attracted,  were  republished  in 
Messrs.  Longman's  "Travellers'  Library." 


PEOPLE  I   HAVE   KNOWN.  319 

How  Shirley  Brooks  fought  his  way  on  to  Punch  has 
already  been  told  in  these  pages.  Once  there,  he  speed- 
ily made  his  value  felt.  He  began  with  a  rather  weak 
novelette,  wholly  unsuited  to  his  new  organ,  but  he  quick- 
ly became  acclimatized,  and  thenceforward  was  king  of 
the  position.  His  "Essence  of  Parliament"  is  absolutely 
unique:  his  gallery  training  as  summary  writer  was  of 
immense  value,  and  not  merely  was  the  essence  of  the 
actual  debate  distilled  in  the  alembic  of  his  wit,  but 
retrospect  and  forecast  found  places  in  his  fancy.  His 
verses  were  better  than  nine-tenths  of  the  poems  of  his 
day.  His  style,  both  in  verse  and  prose  writing,  was  ex- 
cessively neat,  but  his  neatness  never  swamped  his  hu- 
mor. He  was  charmingly  witty,  but  at  the  same  time 
broadly  funny:  e.g. 

"  '  What  are  the  wild  waves  saying  ?' 
Said  a  maid  in  a  round  straw  hat, 
On  the  sands  of  Margate  playing — 

'  Papa,  can  you  tell  me  that  ?' 
Her  sire,  in  grim  displeasure, 

No  kind  of  an  answer  made, 
Till  she  fetched  him  a  slight  refresher 
With  the  flat  of  her  wooden  spade." 

A  set  of  verses  in  a  more  serious  strain  are  too  long  to 
quote  entire,  but  too  good  not  to  be  rescued  from  obliv- 
ion. The  great  Sir  Robert  Peel  is  supposed  to  be  asking 
his  son  Frederick  (now  Chief  Commissioner  of  Railways, 
then  a  young  man  "about  town")  his  favorite  question, 
"What's  a  pound?"     The  son  replies: 

"  A  pound,  my  father,  is  the  price 
That  clears  the  Opera  wicket : 
Two  lemon  gloves,  one  lemon  ice, 

Libretto,  and  your  ticket. 
A  pound  will  I)uy  a  giMpo  in  March, 

Will  buy  a  peach  in  M;iy  ; 
Or,  in  July,  to  Ellsler  arch 
Will  fling  a  rich  bouquet." 

Sir  Robert  rebukes  him: 

"My  son,  these  butterfly  remarks 
Are  trash,  as  you  must  feel ; 


320  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

They  suit  the  dandies  in  the  Parks, 

Not  him  who  signs  liim  Peel. 
I  hoped  to  lind  my  offspring  tread 

On  higlicr,  nobler  ground  : 
And,  once  again,  I  ask  you,  Fred, 

To  tell  me, '  What's  a  pound  ?'  " 

The  son  replies  with  his  previous  frivolity,  and  then  Sir 
Robert  points  the  moral : 

"  A  laborer  lives  in  yonder  cot, 

With  wife  and  children  five ; 
And  six-and-sixpence,  weekly  got. 

Keeps  the  whole  seven  ahve. 
On  this  he  struggles  like  a  horse, 

Or  crouches  like  a  hound  : 
Fred,  you  can  multiply  of  course — 

Now  go  and  spend  your  pound !" 

Brooks's  readiness  was  as  great  as  Jerrold's,  but  his 
humor,  with  a  strong  sub-acid  flavor,  was  peculiarly  his 
own.  They  were  talking  once  at  my  table  of  the  hor- 
rors of  catalepsy  and  being  buried  alive,  and  I  was  men- 
tioning the  Frankfort  custom  of  depositing  the  bodies 
in  the  dead-house  for  twenty-four  hours  before  burial, 
with  a  bell-rope  attached  to  the  Avrist,  that  a  signal  might 
be  given  in  an  instant,  in  the  event  of  returning  anima- 
tion. "Ah,"  said  Brooks,  "that  custom  evidently  sug- 
gested Tennyson's  line — 'Many  a  morning  on  the  moor- 
land did  I  hear  the  copses  ring  !'  " 

Thoroughly  his  own,  too,  and  uttered  with  his  usual 
curl  of  the  nostril  and  lip,  was  his  remark  on  looking 
round  my  book-shelves,  and  seeing  my  old  school  Homer, 
which  Simpson,  after  patching  and  mending  its  back,  had 
labelled  "  Homer's  Iliad."  "'//omer'*-  Iliad,"  said  Brooks, 
with  an  inflection  on  the  name — "  yes,  I  believe  it  is  the 
best !" 

In  his  youth  Shirley  Brooks  was  a  singularly  handsome 
and  thoroughly  English-looking  man,  with  well-cut  feat- 
ures, fresh  complexion,  and  bright  eyes.  Even  at  the 
last,  when  his  hair  was  silvery  white  and  his  beard  griz- 
zle<l,  he  retained  liis  freshness,  which,  combined  wit!)  his 
hearty  genial  manner,  his  a])preciation  of,  and  ]»roinptitudc 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  32 1 

to  enter  into,  fun,  made  him  look  considerably  younger 
than  his  real  age.  He  was  hearty  and  hospitable,  fond 
of  dining  at  the  dinners  of  rich  City  companies,  where 
he  would  make  excellent  speeches ;  fond  of  enjoying  the 
company  of  a  friend  at  the  Garrick  Club,  or  at  a  corner 
table  in  a  coffee-room  at  one  of  the  old  hotels  in  Covent 
Garden.  It  was  his  special  delight  to  gather  together  at 
his  house  in  Kent  Terrace,  Regent's  Park,  a  score  of  in- 
timate acquaintances  on  the  last  night  of  the  old  year, 
and  in  a  few  kindly  words,  as  midnight  chimed,  to  wish 
them  happiness  and  prosperity  in  the  coming  season. 

Shirley  Brooks  never  took  any  exercise,  and  lived  far 
too  well,  consequently  his  originally  fine  constitution  was 
undermined  by  a  complication  of  disorders.  He  hated 
being  away  from  London,  and  when  in  the  country  or 
at  the  sea  for  his  annual  holiday  looked  thoroughly 
wretched  and  out  of  place,  wore  London  clothes  and  a 
tall  hat,  and  occupied  his  entire  time  in  reading  news- 
papers.    He  died  on  the  23d  February,  '74.     On  the  day 

previous  he  was  told  that (a   newspaper  reporter) 

had  called  to  inquire  after  him.  "There  is  no  need  for 
him  to  do  that,"  Brooks  said,  feebly;  "he  shall  have  his 
paragraph  at  the  proper  time." 

Shirley  Brooks  was  succeeded  in  the  editorial  chair  by 
Tom  Taylor,  who  was  not  a  success.  In  his  youth  he  had 
some  humor  of  a  certain  kind,  but  the  salt  had  lost  its 
savor.  As  a  writer,  Taylor  was  weak  ;  as  an  editor,  vac- 
illating and  fidgety.  He  was  at  his  best  in  dramatic  adap- 
tation, at  his  worst  in  his  Punch  work,  which  was  badly 
chosen,  long-winded,  and  dull.  What  Taylor  spoiled  in 
a  pointless  column  Brooks  would  have  condensed  into  a 
paragraph  or  a  verse  bristling  with  wit.  Taylor  labored 
under  the  delusion  that  he  was  a  poet,  and  the  volumes 
of  Punch  contain  more  bad  verses  of  his,  not  merely  want- 
ing in  the  higher  qualities  of  poetry,  but  halting  lines 
which  will  not  scan,  than  most  periodicals  of  the  same 
kind.  Tom  Taylor's  principal  recommendations  in  life 
were  his  punctuality,  kindness  of  heart,  open-handed  char- 
ity, and  thorough  respectability.     But  the  possession  of 

14* 


322  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

these  vii'tues  does  not  qualify  a  man  to  be  a  contributor 
to  a  satirical  journal :  certain  of  the  dii  majores  of  that 
department  of  literature  have  been  wholly  without  any 
of  them.  Tom  Taylor  was  an  excellent  man,  but  an  in- 
different editor,  and  Punch  was  at  its  lowest  when  under 
his  guidance. 

Of  his  successor,  Me.  F.  C.  Burxand,  there  is  but  little 
occasion  to  speak.  He  enlisted  under  Whitefriars  in  his 
youth,  and  rose  in  the  ranks  which  he  now  commands. 
There  is  not,  perhaps,  in  the  language  more  exquisite 
fooling  than  in  his  "  Happy  Thoughts,"  the  earliest  num- 
bers of  which  excited  the  admiration  of  Dickens,  who  in- 
quired of  me  about  their  author.  No  man  has  a  keener 
sense  of  humor  than  Mr.  Burnand,  or  a  greater  apprecia- 
tion of  it  in  others :  he  is  good-tempered,  but  he  never 
allows  himself  to  be  trifled  with  in  the  conduct  of  his 
business,  and  with  a  perfect  geniality  takes  care  to  pre- 
serve strict  discipline. 

A  man  of  a  grave  and  almost  melancholy  cast  of  coun- 
tenance, handsome  withal,  was  Jonisr  Leech  ;  quiet,  re- 
served, and  gentlemanly  in  manner,  a  hearty  hater  of 
])0sing  and  noise  and  publicity.  Save  at  the  weekly 
diinier,  he  consorted  but  little  with  his  colleagues  on 
Punch,  with  the  exception  of  Thackeray;  he  was  inti- 
mate, at  one  time,  with  Dickens,  to  whom  he  gave  a 
walking-stick  inscribed  "  C.  D.,  from  J.  L.,"  which  Dick- 
ens often  carried  ;  Avith  Millais,  with  ]\Iowbray  Morris, 
and  with  M.  J.  Higgins.  He  and  Albert  Smith  had  been 
fellow  medical  students  at  the  Middlesex  Hospital,  fellow 
assistants  to  that  general  practitioner  who  figures  in  "  Led- 
bury" as  Mr.  liawkins,  but  in  later  life  there  Avas  not 
much  in  common  between  them.  I  fear  Albert  was  a 
little  too  rowdy  for  Leech.  My  relations  with  Leech 
were  always  particularly  pleasant.  Ho  would  have  un- 
dertaken tlie  cover  for  my  first  slnlling  book  had  he  not 
been  too  busy;  and  for  my  entertainment  he  drew  me  an 
admirable  large  crayon  head  of  a  foreign  tenor,  for  which 
he  would  not  hear  of  accejtting  payment.     My  old  friend 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  823 

Mr.  W.  P.  Fkith,  R.A.,  treated  me  in  similar  generous 
fashion. 

There  was  very  little  that  was  eventful  in  Leech's  not 
long  life.  He  was  always  at  work,  but  was  generally  be- 
hindhand with  his  cartoons;  and  half  of  Lemon's  life  was 
passed  in  hansom  cabs,  bowling  away  to  Notting  Hill  or 
Brunswick  Square  or  Kensington,  where,  in  succession, 
Leech  lived.  His  principal  relaxation  was  hunting,  either 
with  the  Queen's  or  the  Brighton  harriers;  and  a  glance 
at  Punch  would  always  tell  which  watering-place  the  Leech 
family  had  visited  during  the  autumn.  He  never,  to  my 
knowledge,  made  but  one  joke.  I  told  him  Brough  was 
going  to  Australia,  and  he  asked,  "  Was  he  going  to 
Brough  it  in  the  bush?"  He  used  to  troll  out  the  old  song 
of  "  King  Death  was  a  rare  old  fellow  "  in  a  deep  bass 
voice,  and  he  had  one  story  which  he  was  fond  of  telling. 
He  and  some  friends  Avent  to  a  travelling  wax- work  show. 
The  exhibitor,  pointing  to  an  attenuated  figure  in  uniform 
with  a  star  on  its  breast,  said,  "  King  George  IV."  Leech 
started,  and  said,  "I  thought  George  IV.  was  a  fat  man!" 
"Did  yer?"  sneered  the  showman;  "and  yer  wouldn't  be 
a  fat  man  neither  if  you'd  been  kep  without  vittles  so 
long  as  him!" 

Leech  suffered  desperately  from  a  disorder  of  the  nerves, 
and  had  a  dread,  amounting  to  a  monomania,  of  noise. 
He  died  in  November,  '64,  aged  forty  -  seven,  and  was 
buried  at  Kcnsal  Green,  the  funeral  service  being  read  by 
Mr.  (now  Canon)  Hole,  who  had  been  Leech's  companion 
on  that  "  Little  Tour  in  Ireland  "  which  they  had  jointly 
recorded  with  pen  and  pencil. 

Horace  Mayhew  was  one  of  those  who  have  found  a 
recognized  connection  with  Punch  to  act  as  a  comfortable 
life  -  belt,  buoying  them  up,  and  enabling  them  to  float 
prosperously  down  the  stream.  He  was  not  largely  en- 
dowed with  native  wit,  but  treated  what  he  had  on  the 
gold-beater's  principle,  and  made  it  go  a  long  way.  He 
was  a  cheery,  light-hearted,  good-natured  creature,  with 
some  power  of  drawing,  a  knowledge  of  French,  a  good 
bass  voice,  and  an  unfailing  power  of  emitting  jokelets. 


324  FIFTY  TEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

He  was  cursed  with  a  competence,  which  prevented  the 
necessity  of  his  striving  to  do  his  best,  but  enabled  him 
to  do  kindly  service  to  others  less  fortunate. 

Of  my  experiences  of  Douglas  Jerbold's  wonderful 
wit  I  have  spoken  elsewhere,  and  I  had  not  the  pleasure 
of  Mr.  Gilbert  a'  Beckett's  acquaintance;  but  I  am  re- 
minded in  this  place  of  two  characteristic  anecdotes  of 
Thackeray.  I  was  walking  with  him  one  evening  from 
the  club,  and  passing  a  fish-shop  in  New  Street,  he  noticed 
two  different  tubs  of  oysters,  one  marked  "  Is.  a  dozen," 
the  other  "  Is.  3cl  a  dozen."  "  How  they  must  hate  each 
other!"  said  Thackeray,  pointing  them  out. 

A  friend  called  on  him  on  the  morning  of  Sunday,  De- 
cember 15,  1861,  with  the  Observer  in  his  hand.  Thack- 
eray spied  the  black  border  of  the  paper  instantly,  and 
started  up.  "  The  Prince  Consort  is  dead  ?"  he  cried. 
The  visitor  intimated  assent.  "  Ah  !"  said  Thackeray, 
dropping  into  his  chair,  "poor  dear  gentleiooinan  /" 

Mr.  J.  R.  Planche  was  one  of  my  earliest  friends;  in- 
deed I  believe  I  first  entered  juvenile  "  society  "  at  a  child's 
party  at  his  house  in  Brompton.  He  was  intimate  with 
my  father,  about  whom  he  had  many  good  stories.  Such 
a  pleasant  little  man,  even  in  his  extreme  old  age — he  was 
over  eighty  at  his  death — and  always  neatly  dressed,  show- 
ing his  French  origin  in  his  vivacity  and  his  constant  ges- 
ticulation.    I  met  him  one  day  at  dinner,  where  he  was 

seated   next  Mr.  A M ,  who  said  to  liim,  "  It's  a 

dreadful  confession,  Planch6;  but  now  whenever  Pm  in- 
troduced to  any  one  I  have  to  say, '  I  knew  your  father.' " 
"Don't  mind  that,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Planche;  "for 
years  past,  under  similar  circumstances,  Pve  had  to  say, 
'I  knew  your  gramlfatlu'r.'"  lie  was  ratlier  ]»roud  of  his 
connection  witli  the  Heralds'  College,  and  disliked  being 
joked  about  it;  but  he  was  greatly  delighted  at  the  follow- 
ing lines  which  I  addressed  to  him: 

"Mr.  Pluncli6, 1  entreat  you,  sir!  give  up  the  IIkrai.d's  Coi.LKaB, 
Leave  IJlue-niuntle  and  Clarencicux  to  fudge  lieraldic  lore, 
To  vainp  armorial  l)earing.'<,  and  to  scatter  useless  knowledge 
Of  ramjiant  and  of  couc/iant,  of  argent,  ffulcs,  and  or  / 


PEOl'LE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  325 

"  Cut  your  curt-hose,  put  on  trousers !  doff  your  breast-emblazoned  tabard ! 
Clear  your  cobwebs,  seize  the  pen  which  you  have  never  plied  in  vain ; 
For  the  bright  sword  of  your  wit  is  growing  rusty  in  its  scabbard, 
And  we  long  to  see  it  gleaming  in  the  gas-lamps  once  again ! 

"  We  remember  how  it  rattled  in  the  joints  of  Humbug's  armor, 
Mowed  down  Conventionality,  laid  Cant  and  Error  low ; 
In  the  hands  of  Miss  Fitzwilliam,  or  some  other  plquante  charmer, 
How  deftly  every  cut  was  dealt,  how  masterly  each  blow ! 

"But  your  mantle,  Mr.  Planche,  has  on  none  of  those  descended 
Who  in  this  present  Christmas-tide  pretend  to  do  your  work ; 
And  as  to  your  Excalibur,  the  least  said  soonest  mended, 
For  in  its  stead  your  followers  wield  a  feeble  little  dirk. 

•'  I  mean — to  give  up  metaphor — that  where  an  illustration 
Of  yours  would  ring  with  Attic  wit  and  pungent  repartee, 
They  put  their  Webster's  dictionary  through  a  long  gyration. 
And  leave  us  finally  in  doubt  as  to  what  their  aim  may  be. 

•  With  slang  they  cram  their  dialogue — and  slang  is  not  amusing — 

No  gentle  lady's  tongue  should  talk  of  '  going  it  like  bricks  !' 
'  Old  cove's '  a  term  which  I  don't  like  to  hear  an  actress  using ; 
Nor  is  coin  most  pleasantly  described  as  '  a  joey  and  three  kicks.' 

■'  Then,  Mr.  Planche,  come  once  more  and  doff  your  herald's  tabard  ! 

Clear  your  cobwebs,  seize  the  pen  which  you  have  never  plied  in  vain  ; 
For  the  bright  sword  of  your  wit  is  growing  rusty  in  its  scabbard, 
And  we  long  to  see  it  flashing  in  the  gas-lamps  once  again !" 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  a  slight  acquaintance  with  the 
late  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  have  heard  him  say  good 
things  and  tell  amusing  stories,  but  as  they  were  mostly 
about  persons  still  living,  they  are  not  admissible  hero. 
The  Duke,  however,  confirmed  me  about  the  truth  of  two 
stories  concerning  which  I  inteiTogated  him,  one  relating 
to  his  father,  the  other  to  himself,  and  which  I  therefore 
give.  It  appears  that  some  tradesmen — I  will  call  them 
Brown  &  Smith — had  been  dunning  Lord  Charles  Welles- 
ley  for  some  time  for  money  due,  and  at  length  they  wrote 
to  his  father  the  Duke.  Then  they  received  the  folloAV- 
ing  communication : 

"Apsley  House. 

"F.-M.  the  Duke  of  Wellington  presents  his  compliments  to  Messrs. 
Brown  &  Smith. 

"  The  Duke  is  not  Lord  Charles  Wellesley,  neither  is  he  Messrs.  Brown 
&  Smith's  debt-collector." 


326  FIFTY   YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

The  Other  story  is  to  this  effect:  Mr.  Samuel  Warren, 
Q.C.,  of  "Ten  Thousand  a  Year"  fame,  was  not  unaccus- 
tomed to  attempt  to  ingratiate  himself  by  what  he  con- 
sidered adroit  flatteries.  One  day,  talking  with  the  late 
Duke,  he  said,  "  What  a  thousand  pities  it  is,  Duke,  that 
you  were  not  brought  up  to  political  life !  If  you  had 
been,  you  would  have  far  excelled  your  contemporaries, 
and  been  the  first  statesman  of  the  day ;  nay,  even  now 
there  is  no  reason,  if  you  applied  yourself,  why  you  should 
not  achieve  that  position!" 

The  Duke  listened,  and  then  said,  "  Mr.  Warren,  I  am 
very  glad  there  is  no  one  here  but  ourselves  to  hear  you 
say  this !" 

"  Why,  your  Grace,  why?"  asked  Warren. 

"Because,"  said  the  Duke,  "they  might  fancy  I  was 
such  a  d d  fool  as  to  believe  what  you  say!" 

My  first  acquaintance  with  Mk.  Abraham  Hayward 
was  made  imder  somcAvhat  peculiar  circumstances.  I  had 
been  reading  the  first  edition  of  his  "  Collected  Essays," 
and  wanting  more  information  on  a  certain  point,  I  took 
the  liberty  of  calling  upon  him  without  introduction, 
pleading  the  fact  set  forth  in  his  book — that  he  had  been 
acquainted  with  my  father — as  an  excuse  for  my  temeri- 
ty. Mr.  Hay  ward,  whom  I  found  in  the  lodging  at  No.  8 
St.  James's  Street  in  which  he  died,  received  me  very 
graciously,  spoke  much  of  my  father's  varied  abilities  in 
public,  and  pleasant  gifts  in  private,  and  gave  me  all  the 
information  I  required.  Not  by  nature  a  particularly 
gracious  man,  his  courtesy  on  this  occasion  was  perhaps 
due  to  the  fact  that  I  quoted  to  him  his  own  story  of 
Samuel  Rogers  and  Multby  going  to  call  on  Dr.  Johnson 
in  Bolt  Court,  and  having  their  hands  on  the  knocker, 
when  their  courage  failed  them  and  they  ran  away.  Hay- 
ward  was  much  pleased  at  this,  and  said,  "  You  did  as 
Boswell  would  have  done  —  came  boldly  in;"  and  more 
l>leased  when  I  cap})ed  the  quotation  from  himself,  and 
said,  "And  I  have  been  received  in  all  kindness." 

The  mention  of  Rogers  led  to  llayward's  showing  me 
a  Duntau  bust  of  that  vury  irritable  old  gentleniau,  won- 


PEOPLE  I   HAVE   KNOWN.  327 

derfully  like,  appallingly  hideous  and  quaint,  warranting 
Luttrel's  remark  on  reading  Rogers's  lines, 

"  The  robin  with  a  sidelong  glance 
Comes  and  looks  at  me  askance." 

"  If  it  had  been  a  carrion  crow  it  would  have  looked  him 
straight  in  the  face."  We  had  a  long  talk  about  Rogers, 
of  whom  I  mentioned  certain  stories  told  me  by  Dickens, 
which  Hay  ward  said  were  quite  true,  but  "  scarcely  fitted 
for  publication  in  the  Quarterly  JRevleio.'''' 

I  saw  Ilayward  pretty  frequently  afterwards,  met  him 
at  dinner  at  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn's  and  other  houses, 
and  had  much  talk  with  him  on  literary  matters.  I  was 
in  the  habit  of  asking  him  for  information,  which  he  gave 
me  freely.     Here  is  a  sjaecimen: 

"8  St.  James's  Street,  January  19. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Yates, — I  do  not  know  who  wrote  tlie  article  on  Wilberforce, 
but  I  agree  with  you  that  to  call  him  a  '  truly  delightful  person '  is  an  ab- 
surdity. I  saw  a  great  deal  of  him,  and  to  me  all  his  agreeability  was 
spoiled  by  his  palpable  insincerity.  He  was  a  coarse-minded  man.  The 
committee  of  the  Athenteum  were  frequently  obliged  to  write  to  him  about 
his  selfish  irregularities.  He  lodged  in  Pall  Mall,  and  quite  lived  at  the 
Club.  After  breakfast  it  was  his  custom  to  sit  upon  two  newspapers  while 
reading  a  third,  or  to  retire  with  a  whole  bundle.  The  article  on  '  Plain 
Whig  Principles '  is  a  bit  of  Reeveism  tout  pur.  It  is  not  authorized  by 
the  Wliig  leaders,  not  by  Lord  Granville,  nor  Lord  Hartington,  nor,  to  the 
best  of  my  belief,  by  any  Whig  of  note. 

"  Faithfully  yours, 

"  A.  Hatward." 
And  again: 

"8  St.  James's  Street,  January  14th,  1880. 
"  I  meant  to  write  to  you  some  time  since,  but  better  late  than  never,  to 
say  with  what  pleasure  I  read  your  '  Club  Case '  in  Time,  which  completely 
confirms  the  impression  I  have  always  maintained  of  it.  Indeed,  I  told 
Thackeray  that  he  was  wrong  when  he  first  mentioned  it  to  me.  It  always 
struck  me  that  the  Club  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  I  think  you 
have  done  quite  right  to  publish  the  facts,  which  can  never  again  be  turned 
to  your  disadvantage.  Dickens  certainly  gave  you  bad  advice,  and  I  can- 
not help  thinking  that  you  fell  a  victim  to  the  ill-feeling  between  him  and 
Thackeray.  I  have  written  an  article  on  Metternich  in  the  fortlicoming 
Quarterly,  but  I  quite  agree  with  your  opinion  of  the  book,  and  so,  I 
think,  will  the  reading  public." 

Some  time  before  this  I  had  obtained  his  consent  to  his 
figuring  as  a  "  Celebrity  at  Home  "  in  the  columns  of  The 


328  FIFTY   YEAllS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

World.     He  was  much  pleased  with  the  manner  in  which 
the  task  was  performed,  and  he  wrote  to  me: 

"  The  article  was  much  more  pleasing  and  flattering  than  I  had  any 
reason  to  expect.  I  feel  much  obliged  by  the  kind  intention  which 
prompted  it,  but  I  assure  you  that  I  am  very  little  of  a  diner-out ;  and  as 
for  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  I  regard  them  as  depending  much  more  on 
the  company  than  the  cookery.  I  found  The  World  a  general  topic  at 
Strawberry  Hill." 

I  have  a  note  in  my  diary: 

'■'■Tuesday,  January  15,  1878, — To-day  met  Hay  ward  in  Bond  Street.  I 
told  him  I  had  been  just  reading  his  article  on  Lord  Melbourne  in  the 
new  number  of  the  Quarterly,  and  that  I  remembered  his  previous  paper 
on  the  same  subject  printed  in  his  '  Essays.'  Hayward  was  much  pleased. 
He  took  me  aside  and  talked  to  me  for  many  minutes.  He  said  the  last 
time  he  saw  Lord  Melbourne  was  a  few  months  before  his  death  at 
Brockett.    It  was  July,  but  Lord  Melbourne  was  sitting  before  a  roaring 

fire,  Mrs. walking  up  and  down  the  room  in  an  agony  of  tears.    Lord 

Melbourne,  suddenly  turning  to  Hayward,  said, '  It's  a  d d  good  thing 

for  a  man  to  have  a  balance  at  his  banker's.'     And  then  he  added,  '  It's  a 

d d  bad  thing  for  a  woman  to  find  it  out.'     After  Melbourne's  death 

W C told  Hayward  tliat  on  that  very  day  he  (Lord  Melbourne) 

had  drawn  a  check  for  seven  hundred  pounds  in  favor  of  Mrs. ." 

And  again : 

"Coming  out  of  the  Grosvenor  Gallery  with  Hayward,  we  saw  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel  in  a  cab,  and  Hayward  began  talking  about  his  father  and  the 
accident  which  killed  him.  He  was  riding  on  Constitution  Hill,  when  two 
young  ladies  galloped  up,  causing  his  horse  to  shy,  and  he  fell  on  his  ribs, 
one  of  which  penetrated  his  lungs,  and  eventually  caused  death.  Chloro- 
form was  not  known  then,  and  Sir  Robert  was  most  sensitive  to  pain,  else 
it  is  believed  had  ho  undergone  an  operation  he  might  have  been  saved."  * 

Here  arc  some  explanations  of  one  of  his  Quarterly 
articles  which  Hayward  gave  me  :  Tlie  "literary  man  of 
note"  Avho  was  asked  to  dinner  on  the  ground  that  he 
was  well  versed  in  Massingcr  and  IMarlowe,  with  whom  he 
jiroved  to  have  only  a  sn])crficial  acquaintance,  was  John 
Forster.  The  celchraled  hcauty  who  asked  Lord  Mel- 
Itourne  whether  Jiaron  jNIaule  was  the  man  lie  (Melliourne) 

♦As  an  illustration  of  his  father's  sensitiveness,  the  present  Sir  Robert 
Peel  told  me  lie  well  remembers  on  one  occasion  Sir  Hemy  Hal  ford,  the 
eminent  physician,  giving  an  account  of  a  railway  accident  which  he  had 
witnessed,  and  which  he  described  with  such  minuteness  that  Sir  Robert 
hud  to  stop  him,  as  he  was  on  the  point  of  fainting. 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  329 

made  a  judge  of  for  burning  down  the  Tower,  was  Lady 
Harriet  d'Orsay.  Hayward's  note  to  me  says :  "  She  was 
a  very  clever  woman,  though  a  languishing  beauty,  and 
meant  it  satirically."  The  "eminent  man  of  letters" — 
whose  beaic  ideal  of  a  wife  or  mistress  was  a  woman  who 
would  sit  on  a  footstool  at  his  feet,  looking  up  fondly  in 
his  face,  and  only  interrupt  him  to  whisper  that  he  was 
the  handsomest  creature  on  earth — was  Edward  Bulwer, 
Lord  Lytton. 

I  suppose  that  most  people  who  knew  him  would  be  of 
the  cabman's  opinion,  that  Me.  John  Forster  was  a  very 
"harbitrary  gent;"  but  to  me  he  was,  I  am  bound  to  say, 
always  amiable,  friendly,  and  helpful.  It  was  through 
Dickens's  influence  and  recommendation  mainly,  no  doubt, 
that  he  thus  made  me  an  exception  to  his  general  rule, 
but  I  think  he  also  had  a  personal  regard  for  me. 

A  friend  who  was  staying  at  Gadshill  at  the  time  when 
my  first  novel  appeared  told  me  that  Forster,  with  a  book 
in  his  hand,  greeted  Dickens  coming  in  to  luncheon  with, 

"  I  have  been  reading,  my  dear  Dickens,  this  book  of 
Mr.  Yates's.  Do  you  know  it  is  really  very  good,  my 
dear  Dickens — quite  as  good  as  Mr.  Anthony  TroUope." 

"That  is  not  very  high  praise,"  said  Dickens,  and  sat 
down  to  his  lunch. 

Dickens  used  to  tell  a  very  characteristic  story  of  For- 
ster, which  has  never  found  its  way  into  print.  At  the 
commencement  of  hostilities  between  Dickens  and  Messrs. 
Bradbury  &  Evans,  the  copyright  of  Household  Words 
was  sold  by  auction  at  Mr.  Hodgson's.  Dickens  was  rep- 
resented at  the  sale  by  John  Forster  and  Arthur  Smith, 
another  intimate  friend  and  ally  of  his,  whom  we  Avill  call 
Mr.  Blank,  being  also  present.  When  the  sale  was  con- 
cluded, Mr.  Blank  was  the  first  to  arrive  at  the  oflice  in 
Wellington  Street,  where  Dickens  was  anxiously  await- 
ing the  news.     Having  told  it,  Mr.  Blank  said, 

"  I  cannot  resist  telling  you  how  admirable  Forster  was 
throughout :  cool,  prompt,  and  energetic,  he  won  the  day 
with  his  business-like  readiness." 

Blank  departed,  and  Forster  arrived;  and  in  the  course 


330  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDOX  LIFE. 

of  the  interview  Dickens,  tbiukiug  it  would  please  him, 
took  occasion  to  tell  what  had  been  said  about  him  by- 
Blank. 

"I  am  very  sorry,  my  dear  Dickens,"  said  Forster, 
"that  I  cannot  return  the  compliment,  for  a  damnder 
ass  than  your  friend  Mr.  Blank  I  never  met  in  a  business 
affair!" 

Mr.  Forster  was  very  much  interested  in  the  success  of 
The  World,  about  which  I  had  a  long  talk  with  him  at  his 
house  at  Palace  Gate  in  the  autumn  of  1875.  Pie  told 
me  that  in  its  palmiest  times  the  JExaminer,  with  which 
he  was  connected  for  twenty  years,  had  never  attained 
a  third  of  our  then  circulation.  The  following  letters 
will  give  a  good  idea  of  the  man  in  his  later  days : 

"Ninth  December,  1S75. 
"I  wish  to  send  a  copy  of  my  Swift  volume  to  you  at  your  private  ad- 
dross,  if  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  tell  me  where.  You  will,  perhaps — when 
I  add  that  the  book  conies  to  you  with  no  view  or  desire  for  review  in  The 
World — not  be  quite  ready  to  believe  me.  You  will,  nevertheless,  be  wrong 
in  that.  When  Mr.  Murray  sent  me  a  Ust  of  press  copies — a  very  short 
one  only — The  11  orW  did  not  appear,  and  I  quite  acquiesced,  not  makiiii:^ 
any  addition  to  it,  or  inserting  The  World.  You  may  well  suppose  that  I 
have  not  much  care  for  the  worst  public  notices,  nor  much  pleasure  in  the 
best,  as  matters  now  go  with  me.  Just  look  into  the  volume  when  you  find 
a  leisure  hour,  and  if  you  think  of  the  friend  now  gone  who  taught  me.  to 
feel  an  interest  in  you,  you  will  not  be  likely  to  think  unkindly  of  it  or  of 
me.  But  I  entreat  that  you  will  not  consider  it  right  or  needful  to  say  a 
public  word  about  it." 

I  did  consider  it  right  tliat  public  words,  both  about 
the  book  and  its  autlior,  should  l)e  said  iu  The  Worlds  and 
tliey  were  said;  with  what  effect  upon  the  latter  his  let- 
ter will  testify : 

"5th  Jan.,  1876. 
"  My  dear  Yates, — Yon  are  very  good  and  kind  to  me.  You  have  done 
thoroughly  what  you  wished  to  do:  you  have  given  me  pleasure — pleasure 
unalloyed  by  anything  excepting  d(tubt  (which  does  not  on  this  occasion 
distress  one  as  perhaps  it  ought)  whether  all  the  friendly  expressions  are 
(leseive<l ;  but  generous  words  are  not  for  critieism.  Tiie  article  is  written 
throughout  witii  a  nice;  consideration,  and  there  are  some  things  in  it  that 
have  touelied  me  very  much.  Again  I  heartily  thank  you  for  it,  and  beg 
you  to  believe  mo  Very  sincerely  yours, 

"John  Forstkb." 


PEOPLE  I   HAVE  KNOWN.  331 

My  intercourse  with  Charles  Reade  was  always  pleas- 
ant, but  never  intimate.  I  was  a  member  of  the  Garrick 
Club  when  he  was  elected,  and  first  used  to  excite  the  in- 
dignation of  the  old  gentleman  by  changing  his  boots  for 
a  pair  of  slippers,  which  he  kept  in  a  dressing-room,  and 
in  which  he,  tiger-like,  walked  to  and  fro  perambulating 
the  coffee-room. 

On  one  occasion  I  owed  much  to  his  good  services.  I 
was  lecturing  at  Oxford,  and  declining  to  submit  to  the 
"  chaff "  of  a  knot  of  undergraduates  at  the  end  of  the 
room,  I  shut  up  my  book  and  retired,  that  being  the  sig- 
nal for  the  commencement  of  a  row  in  which  I  was  freely 
threatened.  Charles  Reade,  who  was  staying  at  the  time 
in  his  Magdalen  rooms,  pushed  his  way  into  the  middle 
of  the  disturbance,  claimed  me  as  his  friend,  and  pacified 
the  rioters,  with  whom  we  both  of  us  spent  a  jolly  evening. 

From  time  to  time  I  had  short  letters  from  him  of  va- 
rious kinds,  one  of  which,  showing  his  method  of  work 
and  his  odd  notions  of  literary  meum  and  tuum^  I  subjoin: 

"2  Albert  Terrace,  Knightsbridge,  December  lUh. 
"  Dear  Yates, — I  observe  that  you  publish  short  stories  in  The  World. 
I  seldom  do  anything  in  that  way,  but  it  so  happens  that  I  have  one  to 
dispose  of.  It  came  about  thus :  My  letters  on  the  wrongs  of  authors 
elicited  a  shoal  of  communications  from  the  United  States,  and  among 
them  one  from  a  young  author,  who  complained  that  he  could  not  get  his 
American  sketches  published  in  America  because  he  is  not  an  Englishman. 
'  Send  me  one,'  said  I.  He  did  so ;  and  finding  there  was  some  good  stuff 
in  it,  marred  in  many  places  by  garrulity  and  other  defects  of  inexperi- 
ence, I  agreed  to  work  on  it.  I  cut  and  improved  the  good,  and  excised 
the  bad,  especially  high-falutin,  and  a  piece  of  preposterous  tragedy  that 
spoiled  the  lot.  Thus  handled,  it  seems  to  me  to  read  well,  and  I  am  not 
the  least  ashamed  to  sign  my  name  to  it,  only,  as  a  matter  of  international 
probity,  I  must  put  the  American  author's  name  first.  If  this  outline  in- 
dicates anything  acceptable,  I  shall  be  happy  to  submit  the  manuscript  for 
approval.     If  not,  please  tell  me.        Yours  truly, 

"  Charles  Reade." 

Mk.  Martin  Tupper's  family  and  mine  had,  as  has  been 
already  stated,  been  long  acquainted.  His  father  was  the 
senior  partner  in  the  then  well  -  known  medical  firm  of 
Tupper,  Chilvers  &  Brown,  in  Old  Burlington  Street,  the 
junior  partner  having  the  good-luck  to  marry  Miss  Merc- 


332  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

dith,  for  so  many  years  the  intimate  friend  and  companion 
of  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts.  My  first  meeting  with 
Mr.  Martin  Tupper  was  at  the  house  of  a  common  friend 
at  Albury,  where  I  was  staying.  Mr.  Tupper,  who  lived 
in  the  neighborhood,  received  me  with  great  cordiality, 
and  asked  me  to  come  and  see  him  the  next  day.  During 
my  visit  he  showed  me  an  immense  volume,  in  which 
Avere  pasted  all  the  criticisms,  favorable  and  unfavorable, 
of  his  works,  and  all  the  parodies  ;  among  the  latter  I 
saw,  with  horror,  some  which  I  had  written,  and,  with 
more  horror,  a  marginal  note  in  Mr.  Tupper's  handwrit- 
ing, "  I  understand  these  to  be  by  Edmund  Yates  :  they 
are  very  smart."  He  was  particularly  kind  and  good- 
natured  over  the  matter. 

The  first  time  I  met  Lokd  Tennyson  was  in  Mr.  Tup- 
per's company,  at  the  house  of  Mr,  J.  Bertram  Payne,  the 
then  representative  of  Moxon  &  Co.,  where  a  few  literary 
men  were  gathered  together.  It  was  the  first  time  that 
the  two  poets  had  met,  and  it  was  most  amusing  to  watch 
their  bearing  to  each  other.  The  proofs  of  Mr.  Hughes's 
recently  finished  drawings  for  the  illustrated  edition  of 
"  Enoch  Arden "  were  submitted  to  the  Laureate,  who 
approved  of  them  all  with  one  exception.  "This  is  not 
right,"  he  said,  in  his  deep  voice :  " '  There  came  so  loud 
a  calling  of  the  sea.'  The  man  cannot  have  lived  by  the 
sea;  he  does  not  know  what  a  '  calling '  means.  It  is  any- 
thing but  a  great  upheaval  such  as  is  here  represented." 

Of  Carlyle  I  may  say  vidi  tcmtum.  I  was  presented  to 
him  by  Dickens  one  day  when  we  met  him  walking  down 
Portland  Place,  but  as  we  parted  from  liim  Dickens  told 
me  a  good  story.  He  had  met  Carlyle  at  dinner  a  few 
nights  before,  where  there  was  present  a  certain  pompous 
gentk'man,  who  still  lives  to  adjust  literary  reputations. 
A  question  of  some  moment  having  been  started,  it  was 
promj)tly  disjjoscd  of  l)y  this  ])ersonagc,  who,  as  Dickens 
said,  "  in  his  usual  style  took  hold  of  \y,  made  it  into  a 
small  parcel,  and  laid  it  aAvay  on  a  shelf,  not  to  be  moved 
llu'nfc  nny  moi'c."     It  seems  that  after  the  oracle  had  de- 


PEOPLE  I  nAVE  KKOWN.  333 

livered  himself  there  was  a  dead  silence,  in  the  midst  of 
which  Carlyle,  who  had  been  blankly  gazing  at  the  great 
personage  opposite  to  him,  said,  in  a  truly  absent  manner, 
but  perfectly  audible,  "  Eh,  but  you're  a  puir  creatur — a 
puir,  wratched,  meeserable  creatur,"  and  then  went  on 
with  his  dinner. 

On  Folkestone  pier  my  old  friend  George  Henry  Lewes 
presented  me  to  George  Eliot.  They  had  been  intend- 
ing to  cross  the  Channel  that  day,  but  were  delayed  by 
the  rough  weather.  We  had  some  very  pleasant  talk,  and 
the  great  novelist  was  good  enough  to  remember  some 
articles  of  mine  in  the  Illustrated  Times  on  the  first  ap- 
l^earance  of  her  "  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,"  in  which  I  had 
doubted  the  claims  of  one  Mr.  Josejih  Liggins,  who  had 
announced  himself  as  the  author  of  the  book. 

I  remember,  at  the  time  of  the  publication  of  "Adam 
Bede,"  writing  to  Dickens  to  tell  me  the  real  name  of  its 
author.  His  very  funny  reply  was  to  the  effect  that  "it 
is  either  Bradbury  or  Evans  ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  it 
is  Bradbury." 

I  had  a  good  deal  of  intercourse  and  communication 
with  Mr.  J.  T.  Delane  during  the  last  years  of  his  life. 
He  was  very  sensitive  about  any  notice  being  taken  of 
his  failing  health.     He  writes  to  me  on  June  15: 

"  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  considerate  notice  of  my  little 
accident,  and  above  all  for  reserving  it  until  you  could  announce  the  re- 
covery, which  saves  me  a  deluge  of  '  kind '  inquiries  much  harder  to  bear 
than  the  fall  itself." 

And  again  : 

"October  23d. 
"I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  intimating  that  there  is  no  necessity 
for  people  to  occupy  themselves  witli  my  health.  I  have  this  moment  re- 
turned from  Blenheim,  the  last  of  a  scries  of  autumnal  visits,  and  have  no 
intention  of  leaving  town  again  before  Christmas,  when  I  shall  endeavor 
to  fulfil  some  shooting  engagements.  My  health  is  excellent,  and  I  hope 
no  unfavorable  conclusion  will  be  drawn  from  the  fact  that  I  declined  to 
shoot  partridges  in  the  heavy  rain  of  yesterday." 

The  following  is  of  special  interest : 


334  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

"16  Sergeants'  Inn,  June  15. 
"Dear  Mr.  Yates, — You  would  much  oblige  me  if  you  would  contradict, 

in  the  next  number  of  TJic  World,  the  statement  in  the  last ,  of 

my  resignation  as  editor  of  the  Times.  There  is  absolutely  no  foundation 
whatever  for  the  rumor,  and  the  suggestion  that  I  resigned  in  sympathy 
with  Mr.  Sampson  is  particularly  offensive,  considering  the  circumstances 
under  which  he  did  resign.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  no  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Sampson,  and  certainly  no  sympathy  with  him. 

"Ever  faithfully  yours, 

"  J.  T.  Delane." 

Mr.  Delane  held  fast  to  the  old-fashioned  theory  that 
the  editor  of  a  newspaper  should  be  an  impersonal  myth, 
and  in  replying  to  my  request  that  an  old  friend  of  his 
might  be  allowed  to  write  an  article  on  him  for  the  series 
of  "  Celebrities  at  Home,"  sent  me  the  following : 

"  16  Sergeants'  Inn,  Februai-y  22. 
"  Dear  Mr.  Yates, — Ever  since  I  first  saw  you  personate  a  slack-rope 
dancer  at  Mrs.  Horace  Twiss's  some  twenty-five  years  ago,*  I  have  had 
frequent  proof  of  your  kindness,  for  which  I  am  by  no  means  ungrateful ; 
but  the  culminating  proof  of  your  desire  to  please  will  be  if  you  will  spare 
me  from  being  included  in  your  '  Celebrities  at  Homo.'  Pray  let  me  re- 
main at  home  in  the  shabby  little  house  I  have  occupied  for  the  last  thirty 
years,  and  where  my  anxious  desire  has  always  been  to  avoid  becoming  a 
celebrity.  Any  public  notice  of  myself  or  my  habits  has  caused  me  such 
annoyance  that  I  feel  justified  in  attaching  an  importance  which  would 
otherwise  appear  altogether  disproportionate  to  the  request.  Leave  me 
in  my  obscurity,  dear  Mr.  Yates,  and  I  shall  ever  be  your  debtor. 

"Faithfully  yours, 

"J.  T.  Delane." 

It  is  lucky  for  me  that  emperors,  kings,  princes,  states- 
men, and  "men  of  liglit  and  leading"  of  all  kinds  have 
not  been  influenced  by  tliese  feelings. 

Many  of  my  early  days  were  spent  in  company  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Koeley,  the  latter  of  whom  l^ppily  survives 
to  this  day,  Rohkkt  Kkki.ey  was  not  merely  an  admi- 
rable actor,  he  was  a  man  ]»osses8ed  of  much  common- 
sense  and  mother-wit,  and  li;>d  a  certain  amount  of  read- 


•  Mr.  Delane  is  licrc  mixing  up  the  dinner-party  at  Horace  Twiss's,  at 
which  Albert  Smith  and  others  performed  (sec  p.  147),  with  the  Amateur 
rantomimc. 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOWN.  335 

ing.  In  private,  as  in  public,  his  utterances  were  given 
forth  with  an  extraordinary  stolidity  of  manner  and  ex- 
pression which  rendered  them  doubly  amusing. 

He  had  a  great  vein  of  shrewd,  sensible  humor.  Stand- 
ing by  me  one  day  at  a  window  of  the  Swan  Inn  at 
Thames  Ditton,  looking  at  the  ducks  wending  their  way 
across  the  lawn  in  a  pouring  shower,  loudly  quacking 
their  delight,  Keeley  softly  muttered  under  his  breath, 

"  Ha,  ha,  d d  fools  !  you  don't  think  how  this  rain  is 

making  the  green-peas  grow  !" 

Nor  shall  I  readily  forget  seeing  him  standing  in  the 
window  of  a  hotel  at  Boulogne,  where  a  little  marchmide 
des  Jleurs  was  offering  him  her  wares. 

*'  Des  fleurs,  monsieur  ?"  said  the  little  girl. 

"  Pas  aujourd'hui." 

"  Monsieur,  achetez  des  fleurs  !" 

The  request  met  with  the  same  response. 

A  third  time  the  girl  tried,  to  receive  a  similar  rebuff ; 
but,  on  a  fourth  application,  Keeley  turned  from  the  win- 
dow, muttering  as  he  went, 

"  I  have  said  '  Pas  aujourd'hui '  three  times,  and  now 
you  may  go  to  the  devil !" 

I  did  not  see  much  of  Buckstone  in  his  later  life,  but 
when  we  met  we  were  always  on  the  pleasantest  terms. 
He  was  an  excellent  raconteur,  and  none  of  his  stories 
went  off  better  than  those  against  himself,  which  he  told 
freely.  Here  is  one  of  them.  Coming  home  late  one 
night  to  his  private  house,  which  adjoined  the  back  por- 
tion of  the  Ilaymarket  premises  in  Suffolk  Street,  he  found 
a  man  leaning  up  against  the  stage  -  door  of  the  theatre 
very  drunk,  and  vomiting  violently.  Disgusted  at  the 
sight,  Buckstone  went  up  to  the  wretched  creature,  and 
desired  him  to  go  off. 

"Get  along!  go  to !"  was  all  his  reply. 

Buckstone  reiterated  his  objurgations,  but  failed  to  get 
anything  more  definite  out  of  the  man,  until,  in  the  height 
of  his  anger,  Buckstone  cried, 

"  I  will  call  the  police,  sir  !     Do  you  know  who  I  am  ?" 

Upon  which  the  man,  with  a  chuckle,  replied. 


336  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LOXDON   LIFE. 

"  Of  course  I  do  ;  some  d d  fellow  giving  a  devil- 
ish bad  imitation  of  Buckstone." 

His  later  days  were  full  of  poverty  and  sadness,  and  his 
sensibility  was  much  keener  than  most  persons  believe. 
A  short  time  before  his  death  I  sent  him  some  letters, 
written  by  him  to  my  father  many  years  before,  which  I 
knew  would  interest  and  amuse  him. 

They  came  back  with  these  words : 

"  I  return  you  the  letters,  interesting,  certainly,  but  conveying  a  melan- 
choly feeling.-  They  carry  me  back  forty  years ;  I  wish  they  could  do  so 
in  reality.  Not  that  I  care  much  for  a  longer  life ;  but  I  have  seven  young 
children  and  a  wife,  whom,  old  as  I  am,  I  love,  and  for  their  sakes  alone  I 
wish  for  a  little  more  working-time." 

Some  of  the  wittiest  and  most  amusing  letters  I  have 
ever  received  came  to  me  during  my  editorship  of  Temple 
Bar  from  Miss  Braddon,  several  of  whose  earlier  at- 
tempts made  their  aj^pearance  iinder  my  direction,  and 
who  has  always  honored  me  with  a  steady  friendship. 

"Did  you  see,"  .she  writes,  "what  the says  about  "Aurora  Floyd" 

and  my  philosophy  in  the  matter  of  beer,  brandy,  and  cigars  and  tobacco  ? 
It  is  all  Mr.  Tinsley's  fault  for  advertising  mc  as  '  Mary  Elizabeth.'  I  used 
to  be  called  Mr.  Braddon,  and  provincial  critics  were  wont  to  regret  that 
my  experience  of  women  had  been  so  bitter  as  to  make  me  an  implacable 
foe  to  tlie  fair  sex.  They  thought  I  had  been  '  cradled  into  magazines  by 
wrong,'  and  had  learned  in  the  Divorce  Court  what  I  taught  in  three-vol- 
ume novels." 

Hear  her  again  as  to  the  style  in  which  these  same  three- 
volume  novels  are  very  often  Avritten: 

"  The  Balzac-morbid-anatomy  school  is  my  especial  delight,  but  it  seems 
you  want  tiic  right-down  sensational ;  floppings  at  the  end  of  chapters,  and 
bits  of  paper  hidden  in  secret  drawers,  Ijank-notes  and  title-deeds  under 
tlic  carpet,  and  a  i)arl  of  tlie  l)ody  jiutrefying  in  the  coal-scuttle.  IJy-the- 
bye,  what  a  splendid  novel,  d  la  Wiliiie  Collins,  one  might  write  on  a  pro- 
tracted searcli  for  tlic  missing  meniijcrs  of  a  nuinlered  man,  dividing  tlic 
arms  not  into  hooks  but  bitu  !  '  Bit  tiik  Fiust  :  The  leg  in  tiie  gray  stock- 
ing found  at  I)c])tfor(i.'  '  Bit  thk  BucoNn :  Tlie  white  hand  and  the  onyx 
ring  witli  liaif  an  initial  letter  (unknown)  and  crest,  skull  with  a  coronet, 
found  in  an  Alpine  crcvaiise  !  ^ 

"Swiously,  tljougli,  you  want  a  sensational  fiction  to  commence  in  Janu- 
ary, you  loll  mc.  I  cannot  promise  you  anytliing  new,  when,  alas,  I  look 
round  nntl  find  everytliingon  tliis  earth  seems  to  have  been  done,  and  done, 
iiiid  done  again!     Did  nut  .Jules  Janin  so  coniplain   long  ago  in  a  [)rolest 


PEOPLE   I   HAVE   KNOWN.  337 

against  romancism,  i.e.,  sensationalism?  I  will  give  the  kaleidoscope 
(which  I  cannot  spell)  another  turn,  and  will  do  my  very  best  with  the  old 
bits  of  glass  and  pins  and  rubbish. 

"  There  they  all  are — the  young  lady  who  has  married  a  burglar,  and  who 
does  not  want  to  introduce  him  to  her  friends ;  the  duke  (after  the  manner 

of )  wiio  comes  into  the  world  with  six-and-thirty  pages  of  graphic 

detail,  and  goes  out  of  it  without  having  said  boo  to  a  goose;  the  two  broth- 
ers who  are  perpetually  taken  for  one  another ;  the  twin-sisters  ditto,  ditto ; 
the  high-bred  and  conscientious  banker,  who  has  made  away  with  every- 
body's title-deeds.  Any  novel  combination  of  the  well-known  figures  ia 
completely  at  your  service,  workmanship  careful,  delivery  prompt." 

I  saw  Jules  Janin  twice — once  in  life,  once  in  death. 
The  first  occasion  was  at  a  dinner  given  by  M.  de  la 
Grene  at  Ledoyen's  open-air  restaurant,  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees.  There  were  present  several  naval  officers,  some 
mondains,  and  a  few  journalists,  among  the  latter  Emile 
de  Girardin  and  Jules  Janin.  It  was  my  good -fortune 
to  be  placed  next  Janin,  whose  work,  bavardage  though 
it  were,  I  had  long  admired.  He  talked  freely  and  pleas- 
antly of  the  Dumases,  pbre  etjils,  of  Marie  du  Plessis,  the 
original  of  Marguerite  Gauthier,  of  Rachael  and  Dejazet 
and  Schneider,  and  many  other  reines  de  la  rampe.  Of 
the  Dumases  he  told  me  an  excellent  story.  It  appears 
that  on  the  publication  of  "  La  Dame  aux  Camillas  "  old 
Alexandre  wrote  to  his  son,  as  though  to  a  stranger,  con- 
gratulating him  on  his  book,  and  adding  that  he  ought 
to  know  something  about  the  difficulties  of  novel-writ- 
ing, as  he  had  himself  been  guilty  of  several.  Alexan- 
dre ^/s  replied  in  the  same  spirit,  thanking  his  correspon- 
dent for  his  congratulations,  of  which  he  felt  specially 
proud,  as  coming  from  07ie  of  whom  he  had  often  heard 
his  father  sjyeak  in  the  highest  terms! 

The  second  occasion  was  on  Saturday,  the  20th  June, 
1874.  Janin  had  died  the  night  before  at  his  house  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Pompe,  Passy,  and  I  was  asked  by  a  friend  of 
mine,  a  former  colleague  of  the  great  critic's,  to  accom- 
pany him  on  his  visit  of  condolence.  Such  a  pretty  house, 
built  in  the  style  of  a  Swiss  chalet,  and  standing  in  the 
midst  of  a  garden  full  of  waving  trees,  velvet  turf,  and 
sweet-smelling  flowers.  In  this  garden  Janin  used,  in 
the  summer,  to  receive  his  friends,  members  of  the  lit- 

15 


338  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

erary  world,  so  proud  to  pay  homage  to  their  illustrious 
confrere.  Amid  the  iron  -  work  of  its  outer  gate  was 
worked  the  monogram  "  J.  J.,"  initials  so  eagerly  looked 
for  in  the  Journal  des  Debats  every  Sunday  for  forty 
years.  We  sent  in  our  cards,  and  a  gentleman  came  out 
of  the  house  to  receive  us — a  type  of  a  certain  class  of 
Frenchmen,  small,  gray,  self-possessed,  dressed  in  black, 
with  the  red  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  in  his  but- 
ton-hole. 

In  answer  to  our  interrogatories,  having  first  announced 
himself  as  Dr.  Villette,  the  family  physician,  he  told  us 
that  M.  Janin  had  expired  very  peacefully  and  without 
a  struggle.  For  weeks  past  his  corpulency  had  been  so 
enormous  that  he  had  been  unable  to  move  himself,  but 
had  to  be  carried  by  his  servants  from  place  to  place. 
On  this  Friday  afternoon  he  had  eaten  rather  more  din- 
ner than  usual,  a  little  bouillo/i,  instead  of  the  cup  of 
milk  which  had  recently  sufficed  for  his  meal,  and  feel- 
ing fatigued,  desired  a  servant  to  help  him  to  bed.  As 
he  reached  the  couch  he  gave  one  long  sigh,  and  it  was 
all  over.  The  rumor  that  he  had  been  for  some  time 
out  of  his  mind  had,  the  doctor  declared,  no  real  foun- 
dation. 

The  knowledge  that  he  had  lost  forever  the  power  of 
locomotion  affected  him  very  much.  Not  long  before 
his  death  he  said  to  some  friends,  "  I  suppose  I  am  cele- 
brated; I  am  a  great  writer;  I  am  a  member  of  the  Acad- 
emy! JSh  bien,  I  would  renounce  all  that  glory  to  walk 
— to  walk  round  this  room  without  assistance!"  And  he 
was  specially  irritated  by  the  compassionate  looks  with 
which  visitors  would  regard  him.  They  did  not  like  to 
openly  ex])ress  their  i)i<y,  but  they  looked  it.  Janin, 
Avith  his  quick  ajtpreciation,  recognized  what  was  mean), 
and  suffered  under  it  horribly,  but  in  silence.  It  was 
from  this.  Dr.  Villette  thought,  that  the  idea  of  his  de- 
mentia had  first  arisen. 

At  the  doctor's  invitation  we  walked  into  the  chamber 
of  death  where  the  l)0(ly  then  lay.  It  was  a  large  din- 
ing-room on  tlie  Hccond-fioor,  painted  in  gay  colors,  with 
a  large  open  fire])lacc   in  the   style  of  the  Renaissance, 


PEOPLE  I  HATE   KNOWN.  339 

and  with  windows  opening  on  to  the  garden.  Owing 
to  its  easiness  of  access  M.  Janin  had  for  some  time  used 
it  as  his  dwelling-room,  and  there  he  died  on  a  couch  on 
which  Berangcr  had  also  breathed  his  last.  At  a  table  in 
a  corner  sat  a  priest,  an  old  lady,  and  two  old  gentlemen. 
The  old  lady  had  a  long  list  before  her,  from  which  she 
read  aloud  various  names,  and  the  old  gentlemen  and  the 
priest  put  cards  into  envelopes  which  they  addressed. 
These  cards  were  the  invitations  to  faire  part,  as  it  is 
called — to  take  part  in  the  funeral  ceremony.  They 
looked  around  for  a  moment  as  we  entered,  but  immedi- 
ately returned  to  their  business,  which  they  carried  out, 
I  am  bound  to  say,  without  apparently  the  smallest  ap- 
preciation of  the  surrounding  circumstances.  And  yet 
one  might  have  thought  that  even  the  most  careless  would 
have  been  impressed  ;  for  there,  on  a  low  bed  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  room,  lay  the  remains  of  one  who  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  had  been  one  of  the  most  shining  lights  of 
French  journalism,  and  who  had  won  for  himself  a  world- 
wide reputation.  The  expression  on  the  hairless  face  was 
mild  and  childlike,  as  though  the  seventy  years'  contest 
with  the  world  had  left  no  impression  on  it — calm  and 
innocent,  as  of  a  happy  old  man  in  a  peaceful  slumber. 

The  doctor  accompanied  us  through  the  house.  Be- 
hind the  mortuary  chamber  was  the  kitchen,  bright  and 
glistening  with  its  batterie  de  cuisine,  its  shining  pots  and 
stewpans.  The  broad  staircase  leading  to  the  first  floor 
was  hung  with  rare  engravings  after  tlie  ancient  masters. 
At  the  top  of  the  staircase  was  the  small  winter  dining- 
room,  and  leading  out  of  it  a  huge  cliamber,  used  indis- 
criminately as  dining-room  and  library.  In  each  of  the 
four  corners  of  this  room  was  an  enormous  bookcase  in 
black  oak,  filled  with  Aldines  and  Elzevirs,  rare  editions 
of  rare  works.  Above  the  white  marl)le'  iniiutel-piece,  with 
its  Louis  Seize  clock,  was  a  portrait  of  Madame  Janin  ;  in 
front  of  the  window,  on  a  column  pedestal,  a  marble  bust 
of  Janin,  and  close  by  his  desk,  covered  with  papers  writ- 
ten over  in  blue  ink.  There,  euvelop.ed  in  a  dressing- 
gown  and  with  a  silk  travelling-cap  on  his  head,  lie  used 
to  work.     Here  he  passed  the  last  fifteen  years  of  his  life; 


340  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

here  he  wrote  his  translation  of  Horace,  his  "  Neveu  de 
Rameau,"  his  holidsiy  feuilletons  for  the  Debats. 

As  we  returned  to  Paris  my  friend  told  me  several  anec- 
dotes of  Janin,  His  handwriting  was  very  bad,  a  night- 
mare for  a  printer,  so  illegible  that  only  two  compositors 
out  of  the  whole  staff  of  the  Debats  were  able  to  translate 
it.  When  he  contributed  to  any  other  periodical  he  al- 
ways dictated  his  work  to  Madame  Janin,  who  wrote  an 
excellent  hand.  One  day  he  wrote  a  letter  to  a  friend, 
who  after  much  trouble  deciphered  two  or  three  words, 
which  made  him  think  his  correspondent  must  be  Janin. 
He  immediately  started  for  Passy. 

"Ah,  here  you  are  !"  cried  Janin  on  seeing  him  ;  "you 
have  read  my  letter  ?" 

"Not  at  all,"  rei^lied  the  friend;  "I  have  received  it, 
and  I've  brought  it  here  for  you  to  read  it  to  me." 

"  Well,"  said  Janin,  much  cast  down,  "  I'll  try." 

Janin  was  not  malicious,  but  occasionally  he  would  say 
a  bitter  thing.  A  rich  but  hard-hearted  man,  who  made 
sad  havoc  of  the  French  language,  called  on  him  one  day. 
After  listening  and  suffering  for  some  time,  Janin  spoke 
to  his  visitor  in  Latin.     The  man  was  astonished. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,  M.  Janin,"  he  said,  after  a 
pause  ;  "I  don't  speak  Latin." 

"Try,  sir,  try  !"  cried  the  great  critic;  "you  could  not 
speak  it  so  badly  as  you  do  French." 

Janin  was  buried  on  the  following  Monday,  and  I  at- 
tended the  funeral.  Among  those  assembled  in  the  gar- 
den of  the  house,  before  the  procession  started,  I  saw 
Emile  Girardin,  in  his  short  coat  and  Avith  his  jnnce-nez ; 
Dumas  y?&,  whose  hair  had  grown  gray,  and  who  was  be- 
coming more  and  7nore  like  liis  f.-itlier  ;  John  Lcnioinne, 
a  small  English  -  looking  man;  swarthy  Henri  de  Pene, 
with  his  glass  fixed  in  liis  eye  ;  gray,  stout  M.  de  Lesseps  ; 
Melingue,  tlie  famous  actor,  the  original  Buridan  in  the 
Tour  (h  NesU  ;  Ars6ne  Houssaye,  Nadar  the  photographer, 
and  Alberic  Second.  I  was  standing  l)y  a  table  on  wliich 
were  several  sheets  of  pajx-r  inscribed  with  the  names  of 
the  visitors.  An  old  gentleman  with  a  white  head  and 
a  short  cut  white  l)eard,  a  red,  ])leasant  face,  dressed  in  an 


PEOPLE  I  UAVE  KNOWN.  341 

alpaca  jacket,  and  carrying  a  straw  hat  in  his  hand,  came 
up  to  inscrirey  and  gave  me  a  kindly  bow  as  I  made  way 
for  him.  As  he  left  I  looked  down  at  the  paper  to  see 
what  his  name  might  be,  and  was  astonished  to  read  the 
words,  "Victor  Hugo.'' 

There  was  a  special  reason  why  I  should  stand  well  in 
Mr,  E.  a.  Sothern's  good  graces,  for  in  the  columns  of 
the  Daily  News  I  warmly  welcomed  him,  and  prophesied 
his  future  success. 

We  speedily  became  friends,  and  remained  so  during 
his  life.  I  imagine  his  happiest  time  was  when  he  was 
living  at  The  Cedars  in  Wright's  Lane,  Kensington  (a 
house  which,  after  his  day,  found  a  very  different  tenant 
in  Monsignor  Capel) ;  when  he  was  in  the  full  swing  of 
his  popularity,  much  courted  and  flattered  by  "smart" 
people,  and  adored  by  the  public.  At  that  time,  though 
constantly  in  society,  and  necessarily  keeping  late  hours, 
he  hunted  regularly  with  the  Queen's  or  the  Baron's,  and 
sometimes  even  more  distant  packs,  and  lived  with  strict 
moderation. 

His  practical  joking,  always  one  of  his  favorite  pas- 
times, was  sufficiently  pronounced  in  those  days,  though 
not  carried  to  the  extent  which  it  reached  on  his  later 
visits  to  America.  The  most  successful  of  these  Trans- 
atlantic hoaxes  was  his  inviting  an  English  stranger  (Mr. 
Lee),  who  wished  to  see  the  manners  of  the  New  Yorkers, 
to  a  dinner,  at  which  certain  well-known  negro  minstrels 
— Messrs.  Dan  and  Neil  Bryant,  Nelse  Seymour,  etc. — 
attended,  without  their  burnt  cork,  and  were  introduced 
to  the  English  stranger  as  some  of  "  our  prominent  citi- 
zens." Upon  the  party  sitting  down  to  dinner,  after  an 
interchange  of  the  usual  covu'tesies,  Neil  Bryant  tied  his 
napkin  round  his  head,  and  began  nodding  violently. 
Mr.  Lee  asked  for  an  explanation  from  his  next  neighbor, 
and  was  confidentially  informed  that  these  peculiar  actions 
were  the  result  of  hereditary  eccentricity. 

Other  eccentricities  following,  however,  both  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Bryant  and  his  associates,  Mr.  Lee  became 
indignant.     Mr.  Sothern,  on  behalf  of  his  fellow-country- 


342  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

man,  protested  against  the  proceedings  with  assumed 
eai-nestness.  Mr.  Florence,  with,  apparent  good  faith,  ad- 
monished Mr.  Sothern  not  to  interfere.  Nelse  Seymour, 
pretending  to  be  greatly  incensed  against  Mr.  Bryant, 
rushed  upon  him  with  a  carving-knife.  Mr.  Bryant  drew 
a  revolver,  and  a  sham  fight  occurred  between  himself, 
Mr.  Seymour,  and  several  others.  The  result  not  being 
deemed  satisfactory,  Messrs.  Sothern  and  Florence  pro- 
posed to  fight  a  duel  on  the  spot,  and  immediately  drew 
pistols,  ostensibly  for  that  purpose. 

It  was,  I  think,  through  my  recommendation  that  Soth- 
ern cancelled  his  final  American  engagement,  and  hus- 
banded such  strength  as  yet  remained  to  him.  He  came 
to  stay  with  me  at  Goring,  evidently  dreadfully  ill,  but 
trying  to  carry  it  off  with  a  jaunty  air.  He  was  going  to 
Yarmouth  on  a  fishing  expedition,  then  back  to  America, 
to  fulfil  numberless  engagements.  '*  He  had  been  a  little 
out  of  sorts,  but  would  soon  be  right  again,"  etc.  When 
I  took  the  freedom  of  a  friend,  and  spoke  to  him  serious- 
ly, he  confessed  that  he  was  in  a  desperate  state  of  health. 
I  sent  him  to  my  friend  Dr.  Roose  at  Brighton,  who 
patched  him  up  for  a  bit ;  but  the  malady  had  advanced 
too  far.  The  careful  moderation  in  eating  and  drinking 
which  distinguished  him  when  I  first  knew  him  had,  I  am 
afraid,  been  given  up  for  many  years  past;  his  constitu- 
tion was  undermined,  and  he  died  in  the  following  year. . 

As  an  amusing  companion  next  in  order  to  Dickens  I 
should  certainly  rank  Charles  Mathews.  I  did  not  be- 
come intimately  acquainted  with  liim  until  he  was  nearly 
sixty-five,  but  I  certainly  never  had  a  younger,  more  amus- 
ing, more  vivacious  friend.  In  his  little  house  in  Pelhara 
Crescent,  Bronipton  —  which  was  crammed  from  attic  to 
basement  with  works  of  art,  most  of  them  drawings  made 
by  young  Charles  Mathews  when  he  went  abroad  with 
the  "  lilc'ssinglons  "  to  study  architecture  in  Italy  —  he 
was  the  cheeriest  and  most  agreeable  of  hosts.  Smoking- 
capped  and  dressing-gowned — for  he  invariably  declined, 
eitlier  at  home  or  abroad,  to  give  way  to  the  convention- 
al! iv  of  cvenin"  -  dress  —  seated  at  tlie  licnd   of  liis  (able 


PEOPLE  I  HAVE  KNOVVN.  343 

after  dinner,  with  one  of  the  worst  cigars  imaginable — 
his  tobacco  was  the  only  bad  thing  in  his  house — in  his 
mouth,  he  would  not  only  talk  most  admirably  himself, 
but  be  the  cause  of  excellent  talk  in  others.  There 
Planche  would  forget  that  he  was  even  his  host's  senior, 
and  contribute  his  quota  of  seasoned  jest  ;  there  Arthur 
Sketchley,  "  talented,  though  obese,"  as  he  would  describe 
himself,  would  be  very  funny  himself,  and  the  cause  of 
much  more  fun  in  Henry  James.  Byron,  who  was  never 
seen  to  greater  advantage  than  in  Pelham  Crescent. 

Mathews  was  an  excellent  letter-writer  too.  From  the 
far  shores  of  Lake  Michigan  I  sent  him  a  reminder  of  my 
existence.  He  seems,  from  the  following  reply,  to  have 
found  my  manuscript  somewhat  illegible  : 

"HAtel  cI'An<,'letene,  Nice,  Jainiary  28th,  1873. 

"  My  dear  Edmund, — I  was  delighted  and  surprised  at  receiving  a  letter 
in  Arabic  from,  as  I  supposed,  our  old  Cairo  Dragoman  Hainet ;  but  on 
deciphering  the  commencement,  and  discovering  it  unmistakably  to  be 
'  My  dear  Charley,'  I  began  to  think  I  must  be  in  error,  as  I  never  remem- 
ber his  having  addressed  me  so  familiarly  before ;  and  as,  on  referring  to 
the  date  and  address,  I  clearly  made  out  '  Bancroft  House,'  I  exclaimed  at 
once,  'How  stupid  I  am!  Of  course,  it's  from  Marie  Wilton!  And  yet, 
when  did  she  move  to  Cat  Sapient  Milk  ?  Turning  to  the  signature  (as  I 
ought  to  have  done  at  first),  the  mystery  was  solved,  and  I  immediately 
set  apart  five  hours  for  the  reading,  at  the  end  of  which  time  I  had  nearly 
made  out  every  other  word,  and  by  dinner-time  yesterday  had  pretty  well 
mastered  the  contents. 

"  Well,  I  was  glad  to  receive  the  letter,  I  confess.  We  thought  you 
had  forgotten  us  altogether;  and  Lizzie  actually  made  observations  (I  won't 
repeat  them)  on  your  never  coming  to  look  us  up  on  our  return  from  the 
antipodes.  Never  mind ;  she  will  Jix  you  yet ;  you  sha'n't  walk  up  and 
down,  and  tell  your  stories;  and  we  won't  laugh  at  them  if  you  tell  them 
sitting ;  aiad  I  won't  tell  you  any  of  mine,  nor  Lizzie  any  of  hers — there 
now ! 

"  I'm  not  going  to  write  you  a  long  letter,  so  don't  you  think  it.  While 
you  are  shivering  and  shaking,  snowed  up  at  Cat  Sapient  Milk,  we  are 
basking  under  sun-umbrellas  in  the  midst  of  orange  and  lemon  groves, 
palms,  olives,  and  figs,  by  the  side  of  the  turquoise  sea,  and  grudge  every 
moment  in  the  house,  with  a  positive  horror  of  pen  and  ink.  So  we'll  put 
off  all  we  have  to  say  till  we  meet,  which,  without  any  nonsense,  we  both 
wish  may  be  soon,  with  all  our  hearts;  for  we  both  love  a  cordial  laugh, 
and  with  no  one  do  we  get  it  so  well  as  with  jolly  old  Edmund.  With  our 
united  loves  and  good  w-ishes  for  your  success  and  return, 

"  Ever  faithfully  yours,  C.  J.  Mathews." 


344  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

There  are  frequent  references  to  Mortimer  Collins 
throughout  this  work;  a  man  for  whom  I  had  great  regard 
as  a  friend  and  the  greatest  admiration  as  a  lyrist. 

His  place  is  yet  unfilled.  There  are  hundreds  of  society 
verse-makers  and  of  imitators  of  Praed,  but  no  Mortimer 
Collins.  Searchers  in  back  numbers  of  Temple  Bar  and 
The  World  will  find  many  exquisite  lyrics,  which  have  not 
yet  been  republished ;  but  here  is  a  gem  of  another  kind, 
which  was  printed  in  an  obscure  periodical  that  had  a 
very  short  existence.  It  was  written  on  the  occasion  of 
the  appearance  of  an  advertisement  announcing  a  new 
novel  by  the  Rev.  J.  M.  Beilew  ; 

"  Oh,  oh,  oh  !  what  a  wondrous  city  is 

London  !     If  you  wish  for  pleasures  that  are  new, 
If  you  are  bored  or  bothered,  which  a  pity  is, 
Mind  and  send  at  once  for  the  novel  by  Beilew. 

"  He,  he,  he,  who  talent  does  not  lack  at  will, 
Surely  he  will  give  us  something  very  new ; 
Publish  it  for  him  the  firm  of  Hurst  &  Blackett  will, 
And  make,  I  hope,  a  fortune  of  this  novel  by  Beilew. 

"  Bel-bel-bellow,  the  title  at  the  termini ; 

Shout  out  the  name — it's  the  proper  thing  to  do ; 
A  fascinating  fellow,  who  can  preach  a  clever  sermon,  I 
Guess  will  be  the  hero  of  this  novel  by  Beilew. 

"  P'raps — p'raps — p'raps,  the  scene  at  the  diggins  is ; 
Perhaps  it  is  in  India,  across  the  ocean  blue ; 
Anyhow,  the  gentleman  whose  real  name  Higgius  is* 
Now  is  coming  out  with  a  novel  by  Beilew. 

"  Spur-Spur-Spurgeon,  on,  poke  him  up  and  urge  him  on; 
He's  the  only  man  this  lliggins  to  outdo. 
Surely  he  won't  let  himself  be  beaten  by  a  clergyman, 
Surely  he'll  excel  this  novel  by  Beilew !" 


*  J.  M.  B.'s  original  name  was  Higgins. 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  345 


CHAPTER  xrrr. 

LATER   DAYS   IN   THE    POST-OFFICE. 

With  the  occasional  break  afforded  by  the  special  trips 
recorded  in  an  earlier  chapter,  and  by  the  annually  recur- 
ring month's  holiday,  which  was  generally  spent  with  my 
family  at  some  quiet  sea-side  place,  my  official  life  went 
on  in  tolerably  regular  course. 

It  was  supposed  by  my  literary  friends  to  be  a  monoto- 
nous life;  and  I  was  often  greatly  compassionated,  princi- 
pally by  those  who  lounged  through  their  existence,  and 
were  vastly  indignant  if  the  ravens,  or  their  equivalent, 
did  not  cater  for  them  lavishly.  I  do  not  think  that  the 
monotony  preyed  very  much  upon  me  ;  I  always  found 
plenty  of  amusement  in  my  morning  omnibus  -  rides,  in 
Avhich,  despite  Sir  Roland  Hill's  kindly  admonition.  I  per- 
severed till  the  last.  I  liked  the  pleasant  conference  with 
friends  at  luncheon-time ;  and,  though  the  work  itself — 
the  superintendence  of  the  post-office  buildings  in  large 
towns  and  the  provision  of  proper  postal  accommodation 
for  tho  public  throughout  the  provinces — was  not  particu- 
larly inthralling,  a  student  of  character  could  find  plenty 
of  opportunity  in  the  correspondence  with  the  local  mag- 
nates, and  the  observation  of  the  discomfiture  of  the  Par- 
liamentary representatives  under  pressure  by  their  con- 
stituents. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  myself  should  have  enjoyed  it  so 
much  as  I  did,  had  not  that  good-fortune,  which  has  stood 
me  in  such  wondrous  stead  during  my  life,  decreed  that 
the  one  position  to  which  I  should  most  eagerly  have  as- 
pired, and  which  more  than  any  other  in  the  service  I 
could  satisfactorily  have  filled,  should  fall  vacant  just  at 
the  time  when  I  was  ripe  for  promotion,  and  that  I  should 
have  been  appointed  to   it.     This  was  the  head  of  the 


346  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Missing  Letter  Branch  of  the  Secretary's  office,  and  the 
performance  of  its  duties  not  merely  gave  one  the  chance 
of  showing  individual  capacity,  but  of  escaping  from  the 
ordinary  routine. 

The  Missing  Letter  Branch  was  a  specialty ;  it  under- 
took to  investigate  all  complaints  and  applications  from 
the  pvablic  regarding  letters  which  had  not  reached  their 
destination ;  and  as  fraud  as  well  as  accident  was  a  large 
factor  in  these  irregularities,  I  was  constantly  engaged  in 
following  up  the  mysterious  ramifications  of  romances  of 
real  life,  with  all  the  looked-for  adjuncts  of  traps,  detec- 
tives, private  examinations,  etc.  All  cases  of  theft,  or 
that  bore  any  suspicious  appearance,  were  brought  under 
my  cognizance,  and  duly  submitted  by  me  to  Mr.  William 
Peacock,  the  Assistant  Solicitor,  who  is  still  living,  though 
he  has  long  since  retired,  whose  name  was  thoroughly  well 
known  to  the  public,  and  Avhose  genial  appearance  must 
still  be  fresh  in  the  memory  of  a  large  number  of  the 
Bar. 

In  addition  to  a  large  staff  of  clerks  I  had  the  assistance 
of  four  "travelling  officers,"  who  were  constantly  employed 
in  confidential  investigations  in  the  country,  and  four  first- 
class  detectives  of  the  A  division  from  Scotland  Yard, 
two  of  whom  would  be  attached  to  such  of  the  travelling 
officers  as  wanted  extra  help,  while  the  other  two  were  on 
duty  in  a  glass  case  fitted  up  in  the  hall  of  the  General 
Post-office,  into  which  a  speaking-tube,  hanging  close  by 
my  chair,  communicated. 

We  had  a  funny  story  in  connection  with  that  speaking- 
tube.  One  day  a  gentleman,  who  was  at  that  time  a  large 
employer  of  literary  labor,  called  on  me  at  my  office  to 
discuss  some  matter  in  wliich  we  were  mutually  interested. 
It  struck  me  that  lie  had  been  luncliing,  and  lunching  off 
— or  rather  on — whiskey,  and  his  manner  was  particularly 
short  and  disagreeable.  He  had  finished  his  business,  and 
was  stajiding  opposite  me,  when  the  mouths  of  the  two 
sjx'akiiig-tubcs,  hanging  1)y  the  arms  of  my  chair,  attract- 
ed his  attention.  "What  are  those  things?"  he  asked. 
"Speaking-tubes."  "Where  do  they  go  to?"  "This 
one  to  iho  messengers'  lobby,  tliis  to  the  constables'  box 


LATER  DAYS  IX   THE  rOST-OFFICE.  347 

in  the  hall  below."  "Ah,  pshaw,  with  your  constables  !" 
cried  my  fi'iend  ;  "  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  there's  con- 
stables there  ready  to  come  at  your  call  ?  Pooh,  nonsense! 
you're  always  full  of  your  swagger !"  And,  muttering 
other  unpleasant  remarks  indicative  of  his  incredulity,  the 
great  man  left  the  room. 

As  the  door  shut  behind  liim,  I  thought  I  would  give 
him  a  well -deserved  lesson,  and  I  blew  down  the  pipe. 
"  Yes,  sir,"  was  the  reply.  "  Are  you  both  there  ?" 
"  Yes,  sir,"  "  Stop  a  stout  man  in  a  white  waistcoat, 
who  is  coming  down  the  staircase  ;  take  him  into  the 
Secretary's  lobby,  and  secure  him  till  I  come."  "  All 
right,  sir  !"  I  turned  to  my  work,  and  two  minutes  after- 
wards had  a  message  from  the  hall-keeper  tliat  "  they  had 
got  the  man."  Then  I  went  leisurely  through  the  pas- 
sages and  down  the  grand  staircase,  at  the  bottom  of 
which  I  found  my  employer,  the  descendant  of  the  Curlls 
and  the  Lintotts,  with  a  plain-clothes  constable  on  either 
side  of  him,  holding  tightly  on  to  his  waist. 

"  Here's  the  man,  sir  !"  said  the  senior  of  the  two  offi- 
cers ;  "  he  says  it's  a  mistake  ;  but  they  always  say  that, 
sir,  as  you  know  veiy  well."  "  Mistake  !"  roared  the  Fleet 
Street  bibliopole  ;  "what  the  et  cetera  is  the  meaning  of 
all  this  ?"  "  Only  to  let  you  know  in  future  that  I  don't 
swagger  in  the  way  you  seemed  to  suppose.  You  can  let 
him  go,  men  !" 

The  ordinary  method  of  detecting  an  official  who  had 
fallen  into  dishonest  ways  was  by  making  up  a  "  test"  let- 
ter, which  would  fall  into  his  haiuls  and  be  dealt  with  by 
him  in  the  course  of  his  regular  duty.  In  this  letter  was 
an  enclosure,  a  coin,  or  a  packet  of  stamps,  which  had 
been  previously  marked  by  the  testing  officer,  and  could 
be  sworn  to  in  a  court  of  justice.  If  the  letter  did  not 
come  to  hand  at  the  proper  time,  the  suspected  man  was 
at  once  seized  and  searched,  and,  in  most  cases,  the  con- 
tents foimd  upon  him. 

It  was  the  theory  of  those  versed  in  such  matters  that 
a  man  had  generally  availed  himself  of  a  good  many 
chances  of  theft  before  the  suspicions  of  the  authorities 
were  directed  towards  him  ;  so  that  the  testing  officer 


348  riFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

had  to  deal  with  no  innocent  lamb,  but  with  a  sheep  pos- 
sessing a  considei*able  amount  of  blackness — part  natural, 
part  acquired — and  for  Avhom  the  net  must  consequently 
be  spread  in  an  artistic  manner.  A  good  deal  of  ingenuity 
had  to  be  exercised  in  the  writing  of  the  letters  in  which 
the  marked  bait  was  enclosed,  as  the  least  suspicion  of 
their  genuineness  would  have  induced  the  thieves  to  de- 
stroy them,  and  to  do  away  with  their  contents.  Hence 
the  great  object  was  to  make  the  letters  read  as  natural 
as  jjossible. 

I  recollect  one  which  amused  me  very  much  at  the 
time.  It  was  addressed  to  some  non-existent  person  in 
New  Zealand,  and  was  written  as  though  by  a  brother. 
It  went  at  some  length  into  family  details,  all  very  clev- 
erly and  graphically  narrated  :  the  death  of  "  dear  old 
grandfather  "  was  touched  on  with  much  pathos.  It  then 
proceeded,  "You  will  recollect  the  George  II.  sixpence 
which  used  to  hang  on  his  watch-chain,  and  which  we 
used  to  play  with  when  children,  sitting  on  his  knee? 
The  poor  old  man  perfectly  remembered  how  pleased  you 
used  to  be  with  it,  and  desired  it  might  be  forwarded  to 
you,  after  his  death,  as  a  memento.  So  I  enclose  it."  I 
am  sorry  to  say  the  coin  proved  an  efficient  bait  :  the 
thief  took  the  letter,  and  we  found  dear  old  grandfather's 
George  II.  sixpence  in  his  pocket. 

I  have  often  thought  since  that  our  proceedings  in  these 
matters  were  wholly  unconstitutional  and  highly  repre- 
licnsible,  though  they  had  the  effect  of  bringing  affairs  to 
a  head  very  quickly.  After  the  culprit  had  been  arrested 
and  searched  he  Avas  hauled  off  to  the  Solicitor's  office, 
and  there,  in  the  presence  of  a  certain  select  few,  exam- 
ined by  Mr.  William  Peacock,  who  acted  as  a  kind  of 
I'rench  juge  (Viuatructioyi,  administered  the  most  terrific- 
ally searching  queries,  and  probed  the  man  to  his  very 
marrow. 

Our  worthy  Solicitor  had  formed  his  manner  on  that 
of  certain  of  the  most  notable  Old  Bailey  practitioners  of 
the  day,  and  relied  greatly  on  his  j)owers  of  easy  badinage 
and  smart  retort.  One  day  I  recollect  his  being  complete- 
ly "  si  iini|>e(l  "  by  a  man  just  brought  before  him.    "  Well, 


LATER  DAYS  IN   THE  POST  OFFICE.  349 

sir  !"  he  cried,  in  his  most  sarcastic  tones — "  well,  John 
Smith — I  see  that's  your  name — this  is  a  pretty  piece  of 
business  !"  "  Is  it,  sir  ?"  replied  John  Smith,  easily.  "  I 
haven't  heard  the  particklars  of  it  yet !  Wot's  it  all 
about  ?"  Mr.  Peacock  collapsed  ;  but  in  general  he  con- 
ducted this,  I  believe,  wholly  illegal  preliminary  exami- 
nation with  so  much  adroitness,  and  got  his  facts  so  com- 
pletely marshalled,  that  the  committal  of  the  unfortunate 
wretch  by  the  magistrate  was  a  thing  of  certainty  and  speed. 

When  the  prisoners  were  brought  up  for  trial  at  the 
Old  Bailey  Sessions,  I  used  to  accompany  Mr.  Peacock  to 
the  court.  I  had  always  had  a  great  interest  in  criminal 
proceedings,  and  had  frequently  spent  my  shillings  and 
devoted  my  luncheon-time  in  visits  to  the  gallery,  where 
I  knew  one  of  the  door-keepers,  who  was  occasionally  em- 
ployed as  an  extra  waiter  at  the  Alfred  Club,  where  I  used 
frequently  to  dine.  In  those  early  days  Messrs.  Clarkson 
and  Bodkin  were  the  shining  lights  of  the  court,  but  I 
recollect  nothing  of  them. 

When  I  attended  in  a  recognized  position,  always  sit- 
ting with  Ml'.  Peacock,  I  made  friends  with  many  who 
have  since  been  leaders  of  the  Bar.  Edwin  James,  who 
advised  me  in  the  Garrick  Club  case  ;  Sergeant  Ballan- 
tine  ;  Mr.  Hawkins  and  Sergeant  Parry,  both  in  later  years 
retained  as  leading  counsel  for  The  World  until  removed, 
the  one  by  promotion,  the  other  by  death  ;  Mr.  Sergeant 
Shee,  Mr.  (now  Sir  Ilardinge)  Giflfard,  Mr.  (now  Baron) 
Huddleston — all  would  come  down  occasionally  on  special 
retainers  ;  while  the  court  was  led  by  Mr.  (afterwards 
Sergeant)  Sleigh,  Mr.  Ribton,  Mr.  Clark,  JVEr.  Metcalfe — 
the  two  last-named  being  counsel  for  Post-office  prosecu- 
tions ;  and  the  Junior  Bar  was  well  represented  by  Mr. 
Poland,  Mr.  M.  Williams,  Mr.  Douglas  Straight  ;  Mr. 
Morgan  John  O'Connell,  who  represented  the  Mint  in 
prosecutions  ;  Mr.  A.  B.  Kelly,  an  excellent  descriptive 
reporter  on  the  Times  ^  Mr.  Eyre  Lloyd,  etc. 

I  soon  became  known  to  the  aldermen  and  sheriffs,  and 
frequently  had  the  pleasure  of  lunching  with  them,  and 
listening  with  becoming  awe  to  the  remarks  of  the  cele- 
brated barristers  sitting  round  the  table.     Naturally,  in 


350  VIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

the  course  of  my  experience  as  head  of  the  Missing  Letter 
Branch,  I  was  much  mixed  up  with  the  leading  detectives 
— not  so  much  in  employing  them,  for  we  relied  mainly  on 
our  own  officers,  as  in  affording  them  certain  facilities  for 
the  prosecution  of  their  inquiries. 

Of  the  well-known  brothers,  John  and  Daniel  Forres- 
ter, the  successors  to  the  old  Bow  Street  Runners,  with 
the  difference  that  their  employment  was  in  the  City,  I 
may  say  vidi  tantum:  I  recollect  seeing  them,  very  much 
alike,  standing  outside  the  Mansion  House;  but  I  was  on 
pleasantly  intimate  business  terms  with  Michael  Haydon, 
the  celebrated  City  detective  —  one  of  the  bravest  and 
shrewdest  men  I  have  ever  met — who  is  immortalized  in 
Frith's  picture  of  the  "  Railway  Station,"  and  with  many 
other  excellent  police-officers. 

With  one  of  these,  Sergeant  Hancock,  I  tried  what  my 
old  friend.  Sir  Rowland,  would  doubtless  have  charac- 
terized as  a  "  dangerous  "  experiment.  Hancock  was,  and 
maybe  still  is,  one  of  the  smartest  men  in  the  City  force. 
I  saw  liiin  one  afternoon  in  plain  clothes  lounging  round 
the  big  draper's  shop-windows  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard, 
always  reckoned  good  hunting-ground  for  the  swell-mobs- 
men.  I  satisfied  myself  that  he  had  not  noticed  me,  and, 
gradually  approaching,  got  close  behind  him,  and  gently 
slid  my  hand  into  the  tail  pocket  of  his  coat.  In  an  in- 
stant both  bis  hands  were  behind  him,  and  had  seized 
mine  in  a  vise -like  grip.  He  turned  his  head  quickly 
round,  and  there  was  a  smile  of  triumph  on  liis  face, 
which  faded  away  and  gave  place  to  melancholy  disap- 
j)oiiitment  when  he  recognized  his  captive.  "Too  bad  of 
you,  Mr.  Yates,"  lie  grumbled;  "  I  did  think  I  had  got  one 
of  them  that  time." 

The  experiences  arising  from  my  position  were  varied 
and  most  interesting,  and  of  no  small  use  to  a  person  en- 
gaged as  a  novelist  in  the  portrayal  of  human  weakness. 
It  would  not  do  to  enter  upon  them  here;  but  there  was 
one  episode  so  strange,  so  singular,  and  showing  such  a 
misdirection  of  ability,  that  I  am  tempted  to  narrate  it. 
I  recoMect  Dickens  being  immensely  interested  in  it  at 
llie  time.     Shortly,  the  circumstances  were  these: 


LATER  DAYS  L\  TUE   POST-OITICE.  35I 

A  letter,  containing  a  large  sum  in  bank-notes,  ad- 
dressed to  a  firm  in  the  City,  failed  to  reach  its  destina- 
tion. The  numbers  of  the  notes  were  known,  payment 
of  them  was  stopped,  all  the  banks  and  leading  financial 
houses  were  warned,  and  provided  with  the  requisite  in- 
formation on  which  to  act  in  case  any  of  the  notes  were 
presented.  Time  passed,  and  nothing  was  heard  of  the 
letter  or  its  contents.  Four  or  five  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  date  of  the  theft,  when  ray  principal  assistant 
came  to  me  in  a  state  of  great  excitement,  and  told  me 
he  had  just  received  notice  that  one  of  the  notes  in  the 
case  had  been  paid  into  the  Bank  of  England. 

In  accordance  with  our  usual  custom,  we  procured  the 
note  from  the  bank,  and  commenced  to  try  and  trace  its 
career.  It  was  a  £10  note,  and  had  been  paid  into  the 
bank  in  a  total  of  several  thousands  by  a  firm  of  woollen- 
drapers  in  St.  Martin's  Lane.  They  were  visited,  they 
examined  their  books,  and  declared  they  had  received  it 
from  a  tailor  at  Oxford.  One  of  the  travelling  officers 
was  at  once  despatched  to  Oxford  with  the  note,  saw  the 
tailor,  who  recognized  the  note  by  his  own  private  mark 
on  it,  and  said  that  it  had  come  to  him  from  a  former  cus- 
tomer, who,  while  an  undergraduate,  had  got  rather  heav- 
ily into  his  debt,  and  who  was  "  liquidating  "  by  sending 
his  old  creditor  a  small  amount  whenever  he  could  spare 
it.  Would  he  give  us  his  customer's  name  and  address? 
Certainly  ;  his  name  was  Fifay,  he  was  now  reading  for 
the  Bar,  and  lived  in  chambers  in  Elm  Court,  Temple. 

So  far  so  good.  I  thought  I  would  go  in  person  to 
call  on  Mr.  Fifay,  who  might  require  delicate  handling. 
Mr.  Fifay  was  at  home,  in  pleasant  chambers,  with  more 
signs  of  the  productions  of  Dumas  ^fils  and  Xavier  de 
Montepin  than  of  Blackstone  and  Byles  visible ;  a  pleas- 
ant young  fellow,  who  was  glad  to  see  me,  knew  my  name, 
of  course — had  read  so  many  of  those  charming,  etc.;  in 
fact,  thought  he  had  met  me  at  Jack  Stokes's  if  not  at 
Tom  Styles's.  His  face  changed  considerably  when  I  re- 
minded him  that  I  was  an  official  of  the  Post-office,  and 
informed  him  of  the  particular  business  which  brought 
me  to  hira.     He  was  manifestly  taken  aback,  as  I  have 


352  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

frequently  seen  others  under  similar  circumstances:  he  had 
evidently  entirely  forgotten — if  he  had  ever  known — any- 
thing about  my  connection  with  St,  Martin's-le-Grand. 

Mr.  Fifay  was  a  little  frightened  at  first,  as  most  peo- 
ple are  under  any  kind  of  legal  or  oflicial  examination; 
but  he  soon  recovered  himself  when  he  found  how  much 
about  his  affairs  I  already  knew.  He  admitted  having 
sent  a  £10  note  to  Gowner  of  Oxford,  and  that  it  was 
the  one  in  question  there  was  very  little  doubt,  as,  if 
the  truth  must  be  told,  it  was  the  only  one  he  had  had 
for  a  very  long  time.  "Where  did  he  get  it?  Oh,  all  on 
the  square.  I  didn't  think  he  had  been  "  frisking  the 
till,"  did  I  ?  The  truth  was,  Gowner  had  been  dunning 
like  blazes,  and  he,  Fifay,  had  written  to  his  guardian, 
Rev.  Dr.  Primrose,  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  who  paid  him  an 
allowance,  for  a  little  advance.  The  doctor,  in  a  letter 
of  admonition,  had  enclosed  twenty  pounds — "  a  tenner 
and  two  fivers" — and  the  "tenner"  Fifay  had  forwarded 
to  Gowner.  "Many  thanks  ;  good  morning;"  and  I  left 
Fifay  apparently  much  relieved  that  nothing  worse  had 
happened  to  him. 

It  looked  as  though  the  tracing  of  this  note  would  be  a 
long  and  difiicult  job.  Country  clergymen  do  not,  un- 
fortunately, as  a  rule,  have  very  many  £10  notes,  are  not 
so  overburdened  with  them  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  say 
whence  this  or  that  was  received  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  are  for  the  most  part  poor  men  of  business,  wholly 
unmethodical,  and  with  limp  powers  of  recollection.  Dr. 
Primrose,  however,  to  my  great  delight,  proved  a  very 
different  kind  of  person.  A  little  round  apple-faced  old 
gentleman,  his  person  and  his  parsonage  were  models  of 
neatness  and  order.  Seated  at  a  large  old-fashiuiu'd  t'scri- 
toire,  which  nearly  filled  his  little  study,  he  listened  to  all 
I  had  to  say,  and  when  I  ceased  he  struck  in  at  once: 

"  Certainly,  my  dear  sir,  certainly  ;  on  the  8th  April" — 
referring  to  a  memorandum  -  book  he  had  taken  from  a 
drawer — "I  sent  a  £10  note  to  Charles  Fifay." 

"And  this  is  the  note?"  I  asked,  handing  it  to  him. 

"  Oh  no,  it  isn't !"  he  replied,  quickly.  "  I  can  tell  that 
willioiil  looking  at  it.     This  is  a  cruin))]cd,  dirty,  much- 


LATER  DAYS  IN   THE  POST-OFFICE.  353 

used  note  ;  that  which  I  sent  to  Charles  was  a  brand-new 
one,  which  I  had  just  got  from  Wigglesworth's  bank.  It 
was  numbered  " — and  he  referred  again  to  the  memoran- 
dum-book—" '|26,708  :  London,  May  29,1867;'  and  this 
one — bless  me  !  this  is  '§79,234  :  London,  March,  8,  1859,' 
Quite  a  different  thing." 

"  You're  certain  you  remember  the  number  ?"  I  asked, 
somewhat  suspiciously. 

"  Positive  !  Look  for  yourself  at  my  entry  when  I 
sent  the  money  to  Charles." 

I  looked,  and  satisfied  myself  there  was  no  mistake — 
there  could  be  no  collusion  ;  and  for  the  time  we  were 
completely  at  fault.  Other  bank-notes,  however,  belong- 
ing to  the  same  parcel,  soon  began  to  come  in,  and  from 
what  was  learned  during  the  tracing  of  them  an  old  and 
much  -  respected  letter  -  carrier,  on  the  Fleet  Street  walk, 
was  arrested  on  suspicion,  and  was  committed  for  trial. 
Before  he  was  charged  at  the  Old  Bailey  he  made  a  clean 
breast  of  it,  confessed  his  crime,  and  explained  his  modus 
operandi. 

It  appears  that  he  originally  stole  the  banker's  letter, 
and  took  it  to  his  home.  But  he  had  heard  so  much  talk 
in  the  ofiice  about  the  way  in  which  such  robberies  were 
detected,  the  manner  in  which  bank  -  notes  were  traced, 
etc.,  that  he  was  frightened  to  make  any  immediate  use  of 
his  ill-gotten  spoil,  and  kept  the  bundle  of  notes  securely 
locked  up  in  a  box  for  years.  At  length  the  time  came 
when  he  thought  he  might  profit  by  his  temerity,  and  he 
adopted  a  remarkably  ingenious  scheme.  He  would  select 
certain  letters  which,  from  his  manipulation  of  them  dur- 
ing the  sorting  process,  he  imagined  contained  bank-notes, 
and  laid  them  aside.  At  night. he  conveyed  them  home, 
opened  them,  took  out  the  bank  -  notes  which  they  con- 
tained, replacing  them  by  notes  of  equal  value  taken  from 
the  long -since  stolen  bundle,  sealed  the  letters  again, 
and  took  them  to  the  office  next  day  to  be  forwarded 
to  their  destination.  In  this  fashion  he  was  gradually 
working  off  his  stock  of  "  stopped  "  notes,  and  making  up 
a  little  sheaf  of  more  serviceable  ones  in  their  place,  when 
he  was  detected,  and  sent  into  penal  servitude. 


354  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

I  remained  for  nearly  ten  years  at  the  head  of  the  Miss- 
ing Letter  Branch,  and  thought  I  should  remain  there 
until  I  had  become  disabled,  or  until  I  had  served  the 
necessary  number  of  years  for  securing  a  pension,  when 
the  acquisition  by  the  Government  of  the  telegra])hic  sys- 
tem of  the  country  most  unexpectedly  influenced  the  whole 
course  of  my  future  life. 

The  suggestion  of  this  gigantic  addition  to  the  regular 
work  hitherto  performed  by  the  Post-oflice  Department 
had  originated  with  Mr.  Scudamore,  and  when  sanctioned 
by  Parliament  had  been  handed  over  to  him  to  carry  out. 
The  history  of  that  extraordinary  time  has  yet  to  be  writ- 
ten, but  certainly  not  by  me,  as  my  share  in  the  carrying 
out  of  the  scheme  was  infinitesimal  ;  but  when  it  is  writ- 
ten, the  public  will'  read  with  wonder  of  the  desperate  un- 
flagging energy  by  which  it  was  carried  through  by  the 
man  who  had  planned  it,  and  his  devoted  band  of  follow- 
ers, who  sat  up  night  after  night,  denying  themselves  rest, 
comfort,  almost  food,  in  order  that  the  compact  with  the 
Government  might  be  duly  executed. 

From  my  personal  friendship  with  Mr.  Scudamore  I 
knew  a  good  deal  of  what  was  going  on  ;  but  I  had  no 
hand  in  the  affair,  and  never  thought  I  should  have.  One 
day,  however,  very  soon  after  the  telegraphs  had  been 
taken  over  by  the  Post-office,  I  was  sent  for  by  Mr.  Scud- 
amore. He  spoke  to  me  in  the  kindest  manner,  telling  me 
he  felt  sure  I  must  be  somewhat  wearied  of  the  duties  of 
the  Missing  Letter  Branch  after  such  long  i)erfonnance  of 
them,  and  hinted  it  was  not  improbable  that  before  many 
months  certain  sweeping  changes  niiglit  be  made  in  the 
administration  of  the  Oflice  under  which  I  might  find  my- 
self shelved.  Of  my  ability,  he  was  good  enough  to  say, 
there  was  no  doubt  ;  but  the  selection  of  tliose  to  be 
*'oonii»iilsori]y  retired"  would  rest  with  Mr,  Tilley,  the 
Secretary,  with  whom  I  was  no  special  favorite  ;  and  that, 
possibly  Mr.  Tilley  might  not  be  sorry  of  an  opportunity 
for  displacing  me  in  favor  of  some  one  whose  "  zeal  for 
the  service" — a  convenient  official  phrase — was  more  con- 
spicuously manifest.  In  truth,  I  had  had  one  or  two 
conflicts  with   Mr.  TilKy,  in   wliich,  notwithstanding  the 


LATER   DAYS   IX   THE   POST-OFFICE.  355 

weight  of  his  official  position,  I  had  not  been  wholly  un- 
successful. 

Mr.  Tilley  was  a  shrewd,  caustic,  clever  man,  bred  in 
the  Post  -  office  service  and  knowing  it  thoroughly  ;  by 
no  means  a  crotcheteer,  but,  with  his  public  office  expe- 
rience, tempered  by  plenty  of  worldly  knowledge,  and  as 
unimpressionable  as  an  oyster.  An  excellent  public  ser- 
vant, had  he  not  been  a  sic  volo,  sic  juheo  gentleman — 
one  who  never  allowed  anything  or  any  one  to  stand  in 
his  way;  who  was  accustomed  to  do  as  he  liked  without 
being  called  upon  for  his  reasons  ;  and  with  whom,  as 
I  have  stated,  I,  not  being  entirely  willing  to  prostrate 
myself  in  order  that  I  might  be  ridden  over  rough-shod, 
had  more  than  once  come  into  collision. 

I  had  led  the  mill-horse  life  for  so  long — I  had  been 
jogging  easily  round  and  round  for  so  many  years — that 
I  had  never  contemplated  the  arrival  of  a  time  when  I 
might  have  to  surrender  my  post,  and  with  it  the  £500 
a  year  which,  though  but  a  portion  of  my  income,  was 
a  certainty. 

No  such  contingency  was,  however,  immediately  at 
hand.  Mr.  Scudamore  told  me  he  had  a  plan  for  effect- 
ually utilizing  my  services  in  a  way  that  would  be  pleas- 
ant to  myself  and  valuable  to  the  department.  The  Gov- 
ernment, it  appeared,  had  in  contemplation  an  enormous 
extension  of  telegraph  business.  Under  the  private  com- 
panies compai-atively  few  places,  and  those  only  towns 
of  fair  size,  had  telegraphic  intercommunication;  but  now 
that  the  affair  had  been  acquired  by  the  Post-office,  it 
was  intended  that  every  place  of  sufficient  importance 
to  be  a  money-order  office  should  also  be  made  a  centre 
for  the  receipt  and  despatch  of  telegrams.  This  exten- 
sion of  business  would  necessitate  the  erection  of  poles, 
and  the  carrying  of  many  thousand  miles  of  wire  over 
public  and  private  property  ;  and  it  was  to  obtain  the 
consent  of  the  various  corporate  bodies  and  private  land- 
owners to  the  Government's  amiable  trespass  on  their 
domains  that  my  services  were  about  to  be  called  into 
requisition. 

Mr.  Scudamore  laughed  as  he  showed  me  the  minute 


356  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

to  the  Postmaster-general,  in  which  it  was  set  forth  that 
the  person  to  fill  the  appointment  should  be  a  gentleman 
of  pleasant  manners,  possessing  a  certain  knowledge  of 
the  world,  and  assured  me  that  I  was  the  very  man  to 
meet  the  requirements.  Then  he  gave  me  twenty-four 
hours  to  turn  the  matter  over,  and  I  retired. 

I  at  once  commenced  making  inquiries  from  some  of 
the  higher  officials  in  the  Telegraph  Department  as  to 
the  details  of  my  proposed  duties,  and  all  I  learned  was 
most  satisfactory.  I  found  I  should  be  practically  my 
own  master,  taking  a  certain  district  at  a  time,  and  work- 
ing in  it  until  I  had  exhausted  my  schedule  of  persons 
on  whom  I  was  to  wait,  and  then  moving  on  elsewhere; 
that  I  should  get  rid  of  the  long  familiar  life  of  the  Of- 
fice, with  its  stated  hours  of  attendance  and  its  jog-trot 
routine;  that  I  should  necessarily  have  plenty  of  leisure 
time  in  which  to  pursue  my  literary  labors  ;  and  that  I 
could  always  take  my  wife  foi'  my  companion  whenever 
she  was  so  inclined.  Moreover,  I  felt  convinced,  more 
from  my  old  friend  Scudamore's  manner  than  from  any 
thing  he  actually  said,  that  he  thought  it  very  much  for 
my  interest  that  I  should  accept  the  proffered  berth  ;  and 
as  this  view  was  ratified  at  home,  the  next  morning  I  sig- 
nified ray  thankful  assent. 

And  so,  though  I  w'as  still  an  "  officer  of  the  depart- 
ment," my  old  servitude  at  St.  Martin's-le-Grand  came 
to  an  end  after  twenty-three  years,  and  I  entered  upon 
a  new  official  career.  The  necessity  for  punctual  arrival, 
with  its  concomitant  hateful  "attendance-book,"  the  daily 
dreary  grind,  the  perj>etual  attachment  to  the  "  desk's  dull 
wood" — all  were  abolished  for  a  time  at  least,  iiiid,  as  it 
proved,  forever. 

My  duties  were  pleasant,  and  thoroughly  congenial. 
The  engineer,  in  proposing  a  certain  extension  of  tele- 
grajjliic  accommodation,  would  report  that  difficulty  might 
])ossil)ly  be  experienced  in  "getting  consent,"  as  we  used 
technically  to  call  it,  for  the  erection  of  poles  or  carrying 
the  wires  over  certain  property.  This  might  mean  on 
I)ublic  roads  or  private  lands,  across  gardens,  tlirough 
Htreets,  or  over  chimneys.     T  was  then  despatched  to  see 


LATER   DAYS   IN   THE   POST-OFFICE.  357 

how  the  difficulties  could  be  smoothed.  I  took  up  my 
quarters  in  the  place,  harangued  mayors  and  corporations 
in  council  assembled;  presented  myself  before  local  mag- 
nates in  their  libraries,  on  their  lawns,  even  in  the  midst 
of  their  shooting-parties  when  time  pressed;  sat  with  old 
ladies,  and  dissipated  their  fears  of  the  wires  proving 
liglitning-conductors,  and  importing  the  "electric  fluid" 
into  their  bedrooms;  persuaded  invalids  that  the  sighing 
of  the  wind  through  the  wires,  instead  of  being  an  an- 
noyance, had  an  ^olian  harp7like  quality  of  soothing  ; 
laughed,  chaffed,  persuaded,  cajoled,  threatened  —  when 
necessary;  but  generally  got  my  way. 

I  had  some  very  curious  experiences,  and  in  recalling 
them  I  am  often  astonished  at  my  own  audacity.  We 
had  a  "difficulty,"  of  which  I  now  forget  the  details, 
with  the  city  of  Cork  ;  and  I  was  despatched  to  attend 
a  meeting  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  which  had  been 
specially  invoked,  with  instructions  to  be  firm.  There 
was  a  large  gathering  in  a  handsome  hall,  and  the  feeling 
against  the  Government  seemed  to  run  very  high.  The 
debate  was  opened  by  some  of  the  principal  merchants, 
and  there  were  reporters  who  took  down  every  word. 
When  my  turn  came  I  stated  what  the  Post-office  re- 
quired to  be  done  in  return  for  what  it  was  doing  ;  and 
when,  after  several  speeches  strongly  condemning  my 
suggestions,  they  were  unanimously  refused,  I  quietly 
told  them  that  they  had  done  a  bad  day's  work;  for  the 
Government,  finding  its  efforts  thwarted,  would  certain- 
ly attempt  no  further  extension  of  the  telegraph  system 
in  Ireland.  Tlie  row  that  ensued  was  appalling.  I  made 
my  way  out  of  the  place  amidst  hootings  ;  the  local  jour- 
nals indulged  in  the  fiercest  diatribes;  and  two  days  after, 
Mr.  McCai'thy  Downing,  then  member  for  the  city,  ris- 
ing in  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  asked  the  Gov- 
ernment whether  I  had  authority  for  the  threat  I  had 
held  out. 

At  a  fashionable  watering  -  place  in  Devonshire  there 
was  considerable  opposition  to  our  carrying  the  wires 
through  the  streets;  and  at  a  meeting  of  the  Town  Coun- 
cil, which  T  attended,  the  scheme  was  fiercely  denounced. 


358  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

one  of  the  strongest  malcontents  being,  as  I  discovered, 
the  ground  landlord  of  the  Post-office  building.  In  my 
speech  in  reply  I  alluded  to  this  fact,  saying  I  felt  in- 
clined to  upbi'aid  one  who  ought  to  have  been  on  our  side 
with  Csesar's  words,  "Et  tu,  Brute!"  The  gentleman  in 
question  immediately  rose,  and  asked  the  mayor  whether 
such  expressions  were  in  order. 

One  of  my  funniest  experiences  was  in  attending  the 
Local  Board  of  a  little  town  on  the  Thames,  where  I  was 
told  we  should  be  hotly  opjjosed,  as  we  proposed  to  take 
the  wires  along  a  pretty  road  leading  from  the  station,  on 
one  side  of  which  ran  the  garden  of  a  wealthy  lady,  whose 
agent  was  to  be  my  chief  adversary.  He  was  pointed  out 
to  me  when  I  entered  the  little  room,  where  perhaps  fifteen 
people  were  assembled — a  very  stout  little  man,  with  a  roll 
of  paper  in  his  hand.  He  was  evidently  much  excited,  and 
at  once  demanded  that  "  the  inspector,"  as  he  would  per- 
sist in  calling  mo,  should  "  lay  his  proposition  before  the 
meeting."  I  accordingly  made  a  brief  statement,  during 
the  delivery  of  which  the  little  man  fidgeted  and  fumed, 
but  said  nothing.  When  I  sat  down,  one  or  two  of  the 
tradesmen,  after  exchanging  a  nod  with  my  friend,  asked 
me  some  questions  which  had  evidently  been  prearranged. 

Then  the  little  man  rose,  and  commenced  to  denounce 
the  scheme  which  I  had  propounded  as  one  which  would 
overwhelm  with  ruin  and  confusion  their  lovely  and  peace- 
ful village,  so  well  known  to,  and  so  sought  after  by,  the 
angler,  the  oarsman,  the  tired  and  weary  citizen,  who  Hew 
thither  for  rest.  After  a  good  deal  in  this  strain,  thr  lit- 
tle man  stopped  and  mopped  his  forehead  ;  then  strid- 
ing across  the  room  he  bore  down  upon  me,  and  waving 
his  roll  of  paper  close  under  my  nose,  cried  :  "  And  Avho 
are  you  who  would,  unbidden  and  uninvited,  proceed  to 
force  your  posts  and  wires  down  our  throats?  Minion  of 
the  Government !  I  defy  you  !"  "^riien  he  struck  an  atti- 
tude, and  was  greeted  with  subdued  cheers  by  his  friends. 
There  was  no  chaff  in  this,  it  was  all  meant  perfectly  seri- 
ously. I  was  afraid  my  little  friend  had  exj)ressed  the 
wishes  of  the  meeting,  and  I  retired  covered  with  igno- 
nuny. 


LATEl'i   DAYS   IN   THE   POST-OFFICE.  359 

One  more  anecdote  of  my  experiences  in  those  pleasant 
days.  A  gentleman,  a  large  land-owner  in  Lancashire,  had 
written  to  the  Post-office  complaining  that  in  some  recent 
extension  of  the  telegraphs  a  trespass  had  been  committed 
on  his  property,  and  desiring  that  the  matter  might  be  im- 
mediately set  right.  The  tone  of  the  letter  was  exceed- 
ingly offensive  and  dictatorial,  and  it  was  evident  that  he 
was  a  very  ugly  customer.  The  telegraph  engineer  re- 
ported that  though  a  little  modification  of  the  selected 
route  might  be  made,  to  clear  oif  entirely  from  the  com- 
plainant's land  would  involve  a  considerable  detoxir;  and, 
under  all  the  circumstances,  it  was  considered  advisable 
that  I  should  go  down  and  see  what  could  be  done  with 
our  obstreperous  customer  in  a  personal  intei'view. 

I  did  not  I'eceive  much  encouragement  from  the  land- 
lord of  the  inn  at  the  town  near  Mr.  P 's  estate,  where 

I  put  up  for  the  night  before  paying  my  visit,  who  de- 
scribed him  as  being  a  "  hoigh-handed  un  "  —  Avhatever 
that  might  mean  —  as  very  proud  and  arrogant,  and  as 
having  all  these  evil  qualities  inflamed  and  intensified  by 
constant  illness.  This  did  not  promise  well ;  and  I  re- 
ceived much  the  same  account  from  the  man  who  drove 
me  over  in  a  gig  the  next  morning.  However,  I  was  in 
for  it  ;  and  on  arrival  I  walked  boldly  up  the  steps  and 
set  the  bell  clanging. 

I  gave  my  card  to  the  servant  who  appeared,  telling 

him  to  take  it  to  Mr.  P ,  and  say  that  I  had  come  down 

from  London  to  see  him  on  the  subject  upon  which  he 
had  written  to  the  Post-office.      The  man  looked  very 

doubtful,  and  told  me  Mr.  P was  ill,  and  never  saw 

anybody. 

Was  there  a  Mrs.  P ,  I  asked,  who  could  represent 

her  husband?  "Oh  yes,  there  were  ;  but  she  was  wusser 
nor  him,"  the  man  said — not  in  illness,  but  in  temper.  I 
could  not  go  away  without  having  seen  somebody,  so  I 
told  the  man  to  take  the  card  to  his  master,  and  bring  me 
some  message  in  reply.     He  returned  speedily,  bidding  me 

wait  where  I  was,  and  Mr.  P "  would  come  to  me.     So 

I  lounged  round  the  big  stone  hall,  and  examined  the  fam- 
ily portraits. 


360  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LOx\DON   LIFE. 

Presently  a  door  oi^ened  and  the  servant  re-appeared, 
convoying  an  elderly  lady  with  a  flaming  face.  I  stood 
at  "  attention  "  and  made  a  salaam  ;  but  she  took  no  no- 
tice of  me,  and  M^ent  straight  to  her  carriage,  which  had 
drawn  up  at  the  steps.  About  ten  minutes  after,  the  door 
opened  again,  and  a  wheel-chair  was  pushed  in  by  anoth- 
er servant,  who  retired  at  once. 

The  occupant  of  the  chair  was  a  big  man,  who  had  been 
handsome,  and  who  still  preserved  his  clistinfjue  looks, 
though  his  featui-es  were  a  good  deal  distorted  by  con- 
stant pain.  He  had  keen  black  eyes  and  a  bristling  gray 
beard,  and  a  general  air  of  great  hauteur.  He  turned  slow- 
ly round  to  where  I  stood,  and  called  to  me,  "  Come  here, 
sir,"  very  much  as  though  I  were  a  dog,  and  then  asked 
me  what  I  wanted. 

I  referred  him  to  my  card,  which  he  was  twisting  i»  his 
thin,  bony  fingers,  and  was  just  beginning  a  statement  of 
the  object  of  my  visit  when  he  broke  out  into  the  most 
desperate  tirade  against  the  Government,  against  me, 
against  the  telegraphs,  and  almost  against  everything. 
Why  the  et  cetera  had  the  Government  meddled  in  the 
matter?  The  private  companies  did  the  thing  well,  and 
in  a  gentlemanly  manner,  without  interfering  with  the 
rights  of  property  ;  but  this  et  cetera  Liberal  Government 
wanted  to  grab  everything.  What  the  et  cetera  did  I  mean 
by  coming  to  his  house  and  demanding  to  see  him  '?  Didn't 
I  consider  it  an  et  cetera  liberty  ?  Because  he  did  ;  and 
he'd  be  et  cetera'd  if  he'd  put  up  with  it,  etc. 

I  kept  perfectly  quiet,  though  I  felt  very  hot  and  un- 
comfortable, until  Mr.  P stopped  for  slieer  want  of 

})reath,  and  tlu'ii  T  struck  in.  I  told  him  that  lie  was  ])rob- 
ably  the  best  ju(lg(>  of  how  he  should  receive  any  one  in 
his  own  house  ;  but  that  such  a  reception,  in  the  course 
of  a  tolerably  wide  experience,  was  a  novelty  to  me  ;  that 
it  was  not  for  me  to  say  anything  about  his  diatribes 
against  the  Govcniincnt,  and  that,  as  for  myself,  T  was 
there  merely  as  an  oilicial  sent  on  a  mission  to  discharge 
certain  duties  ;  but  that,  as  I  was  perfectly  certain  the 
Postmaster-general  wotdd  Jiot  like  me  to  stay  to  be  fur- 
ther sworn  at  and  iinnllcd,!  w<;uld  take  my  leave. 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  361 

I  was  moving  towards  the  door,  when  the  old  man, 
looking  very  faint  and  spent  after  his  recent  exertion,  mo- 
tioned me  to  him  and  said,  in  a  weak  voice,  "You  are 
quite  right,  sir,  and  I  have  to  ask  your  pardon.  I  forgot 
myself,  and  let  my  passion  get  the  better  of  me.  I  am 
very  sorry  for  having  caused  you  pain ;  but  I  am  an  old 
man,  and  I  have  been  desperately  ill.  When  I  recover, 
in  a  minute,  I  will  talk  to  you."  He  touched  my  hand 
gently  with  his,  and  then  lay  back,  gasping  for  breath. 

Of  course  I  was  immensely  touched  at  this,  and  I  at 
once  begged  him  to  think  no  more  of  it ;  that  I  could 
perfectly  understand  his  state  ;  that  I  would  wait  his  con- 
venience, and  do  everything  I  could  to  arrange  the  busi- 
ness on  which  I  had  come  down  in  accordance  with  his 
wishes. 

He  bowed  his  head  in  thanks,  and  touched  my  hand 
again  ;  then  he  sat  up  in  the  chair — he  had  revived  con- 
siderably while  I  had  been  speaking — and,  to  my  intense 
astonishment,  he  burst  out  into  loud  cries  of  "  Yates  ! 
Yates  !"  For  a  minute  I  thought  he  had  gone  mad.  I 
tried  to  speak,  but  he  stopped  me,  and  cried  "  Yates  !" 
again,  as  loudly  as  he  could. 

I  was  relieved  to  find  that  Yates,  who  speedily  put  in 
an  appearance,  was  the  farm-bailiff,  who  was  despatched 
with  me  to  the  scene  of  the  trespass,  and  with  whom  I 
soon  entered  into  amicable  relations.  On  my  return  to 
the  house,  Mr.  P approved  of  all  that  had  been  set- 
tled between  the  two  Yateses.  I  found  luncheon  laid  for 
me ;  and  my  host  had  his  chair  wheeled  to  my  side,  and 
proved  an  agreeable  companion. 

My  experiences,  on  the  whole,  were  remarkably  pleas- 
ant and  enjoyable,  and  while  leading  a  very  agreeable 
life  during  the  two  years,  I  may  fairly  claim  to  have 
"done  the  State  some  service." 

I  was  nearly  always  courteously  received,  and  in  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  my  visits  I  managed  to  carry  my 
point.  In  this  result  I  was  a  good  deal  assisted  by  the 
fact  that  at  that  time  such  popularity  as  I  had  gained  as 
a  novelist  was  at  its  height.  I  was  always  immensely 
amused  at  watching  the  surprise  which  people  would  ex- 

16 


362  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

hibit  on  reading  my  name  on  the  card  which  I  handed 
them,  and  then,  looking  in  the  corner,  would  see  "  Tele- 
graph Department,  General  Post-office,"  inscribed  there. 
Their  faces  would  wear  the  same  kind  of  expression 
which  is  displayed  by  travellers  in  a  railway  -  carriage 
when  a  well-known  actor  gets  in.  Some  would  ask  me 
if  I  were  any  relation  to  myself;  others  wondered  wheth- 
er they  really  had  the  pleasure,  etc.  And  in  every  case 
where  it  came  out  that  I  was  really  their  friend  of  the 
circulating  library  or  the  railway  book-stall,  the  fact  not 
merely  acted  as  an  introduction,  but,  I  am  sure,  frequent- 
ly stood  me  in  good  stead. 

I  made  some  very  pleasant  acquaintances,  and  paid 
some  very  pleasant  visits :  one  to  Lord  Dartmouth,  at 
Patshull,  near  Wolverhampton,  where  I  was  hospitably 
entertained ;  and  one  to  the  notorious  Lord  Lonsdale, 
a  very  haughty  old  nobleman,  who  was  the  original  of 
Major  Pendennis's  noble  friend.  Lord  Colchicum,  and 
Mr.  Disraeli's  Lord  Eskdale.  His  lordship  had  repre- 
sented to  the  Office  that  the  recent  erection  of  some  poles 
and  wires  on  Shap  Fell,  a  wild  and  desolate  moorland 
district,  had  been  very  destructive  to  his  grouse,  Avhich 
in  their  flight,  more  especially  in  the  dark,  hurled  them- 
selves against  the  almost  invisible  wires,  and  were  killed 
or  maimed. 

He  made  an  appointment  to  receive  me  on  a  certain 
day  at  Lowther  Castle,  and  was  most  courteous  and  ge- 
nial. He  was  a  very  old  man  at  that  time,  considerably 
])ast  eighty,  and  a  prisoner  to  his  chair,  but  quite  bright 
and  intelligent.  He  fully  understood  and  at  once  ac- 
cepted a  proposition  which  I  made  him  in  regard  to 
shifting  the  i)oles;  and  when  I  rose,  my  business  ended, 
begged  me  to  sit  again.  He  had  ordered  luncheon  for 
jnc,  he  said;  and  if  I  had  never  seen  tlie  castli',  he  thought 
I  should  like  to  go  over  it;  and  he  should  much  like  a 
chat  with  me  about  the  Office,  for  lie  had  once  —  long 
l)efore  my  time — been  Postmaster-general. 

I  liad  forgotten  that  circumstance,  but  Lord  Lonsdale 
liad  forgotten  nothing.  He  sat  by  me  while  I  had  my 
luncheon,  asking  clever  (juestions  and  making  very  sharp 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  363 

comments  on  the  people  who  had  been  in  the  G.  P.  O. 
in  his  day,  and  some  of  whom  still  remained.  Then  he 
asked  me  if  I  were  related  to  "his  old  friend  Yates  of 
the  Adelphi;"  and  when  I  told  him,  he  had  a  long  series 
of  reminiscences  to  tell,  all  most  amusing.  I  was  after- 
wards shown  over  the  castle  by  the  steward,  and  took  my 
leave  of  Lord  Lonsdale  late  in  the  afternoon,  after  a  de- 
lightful day. 

The  old  nobleman  died  soon  after  this,  and  there  is  a 
curious,  and  I  believe  authentic,  anecdote  connected  with 
his  death.  lie  had  long  possessed  a  wonderful  dinner-set 
of  Sevres  china,  which  had  been  stolen  in  Paris  during 
the  Revolution,  and  subsequently  purchased  by  him,  of 
which  three  pieces  were  wanting.  For  years  and  years 
he  sought  for  these  three  pieces  without  success.  At  last 
he  heard  that  they  were  in  a  sale  at  Christie's.  He  sent 
a  friend  to  purchase  them,  and,  being  very  old  and  feeble, 
waited  at  the  door  in  his  brougham.  The  three  pieces 
were  purchased.  Lord  Lonsdale  took  them  home,  and  died 
that  night. 

During  those  two  years,  in  the  discharge  of  my  duty,  I 
travelled  over  a  large  portion  of  England  and  Ireland, 
Scotland  not  coming  within  my  province.  I  generally  ar- 
ranged, always  with  a  due  regard  to  the  public  interest, 
that  my  work  should  lie  in  the  large  provincial  towns, 
or  their  vicinity,  during  the  winter,  while  in  the  lovely 
spring,  summer,  and  autumn  weather  I  took  to  the  coun- 
try districts.  I  am  glad  to  think  that  my  exertions  were 
recognized  and  gave  satisfaction.  I  had  the  best  of  friends 
in  my  chief,  Scudamore,  and  the  kindest  of  allies  in  the 
engineer  of  the  south-western  district  of  England,  Mr.  W. 
H.  Preece,  now  known  as  one  of  our  foremost  electricians, 
and  in  Mr.  T.  H.  Sanger,  head  of  the  Telegraph  Office  in 
Ireland,  one  of  the  most  genial,  generous  creatures  that 
ever  drew  breath,  who  died  a  year  or  two  ago.  To  these 
two  friends  I  owe  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude,  for  under 
their  auspices  I  was  pleasantly,  though  continuously,  em- 
ployed, and  I  had  a  most  delightful  time. 

For  weeks  I  had  ray  head-quarters  at  Plymouth,  com- 
fortable rooms  at  the  Duke  of  Cornwall  Hotel,  whence  I 


364  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOXDOX  LIFE. 

rambled  all  over  the  lovely  neighborhood,  Port  Eliot  and 
Saltash,  with  excursions  up  the  Tamar  and  the  Dart,  and 
farther  afield  to  Mevagissy  and  St.  Ives  and  St.  Austell 
and  the  queer  little  fishing  village  of  Looe,  to  Menheniot 
and  Scorrier  and  Liskeard. 

Over  the  wild  and  bleak  Dartmoor  I  took  the  wires  to 
Princetown,  the  oasis  of  building  in  the  midst  of  the  bar- 
ren desert,  and  into  the  great  convict  prison  close  by. 

To  Boscastle,  and  all  the  adjacent  Arthur's  land,  I  was 
the  pioneer  of  telegraphy,  staying  at  Mrs.  Scott's  quaint 
and  excellent  hotel,  with  the  old  figure-head  from  the 
man-of-war  erected  in  the  garden,  and  the  most  amusing 
visitors' -book,  wherein  I  recollect  a  gentleman  gravely 
records  his  satisfaction  at  having,  after  a  protracted  peru- 
sal of  many  pages,  at  last  found  a  person  who  M'ill  give 
two  m's  to  "  accommodation,"  and  the  landlady's  stories 
of  Douglas  Cook,  the  original  editor  of  the  Saturday  Jie- 
vieio,  who  had  a  house  in  Tintagel,  which  he  occasionally 
visited,  and  who  is  buried  in  the  place. 

A  change  of  head-quarters  to  Penzance,  with  visits  to 
the  Lizard  and  the  Land's  End,  an  inspection  of  the  Long- 
ships  Light-house,  and  a  good  deal  of  yachting  in  Mount's 
Bay ;  a  run  over  to  Helston,  to  see  the  celebrated  "  Flur- 
ry "  or  Flowery  Fair,  with  its  quaint  custom  of  the  entire 
population  dancing  in  and  out  through  the  open  doors  of 
all  the  houses,  which  gave  scope  for  an  amusing  article  in 
All  the  Year  Hound. 

For  I  did  not  neglect  my  regular  literary  work  during 
this  time.  That  would  liave  been  im])ossible,  not  merely 
for  the  absolute  necessity  of  earning  what  it  brought  in, 
but  from  the  fact  tliat  engagements  had  been  previously 
entered  upon  from  which  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  escape.  So,  giving  the  day,  from  immediately  after 
breakfast  till  dinner,  to  my  official  excursions.  I  idsc  early 
and  retired  late  ;  and,  liaving  my  indefatigable  secretary 
Simpson  with  mo,  I  was  enabled  to  get  through  a  large 
amount  of  dictated  work,  wliich  lie  reduced  into  long-hand 
during  my  absence  the  next  day.  Besides  very  many  oc- 
casional articles  for  ninga/.iiu's  and  ne\\'spa])ers,  I  wrote 
1\vo  entire  novels  while  on  lliis  tour:  "Castaway,"  which 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  365 

I  began  on  tlie  Derby  Day,  1871 — the  first  Derby  I  had 
missed  for  twenty  years — in  the  pretty  house  belonging 
to  and  standing  in  the  grounds  of  the  Castle  Hotel,  Lin- 
ton, and  the  best  scene  in  which  I  wrote  in  the  Railway 
Hotel,  Killarney,  with  the  clatter  of  its  table  cVhote  in  the 
room  below ;  and  "  Nobody's  Fortune,"  the  scene  of  which 
is  nearly  w^holly  laid  in  Cornwall,  the  names  of  the  dra- 
matis personcB  being  names  of  stations  on  the  Cornwall 
Railway — it  was  my  frequent  habit  to  name  my  charac- 
ters out  of  "  Bradshaw's  Guide  " — and  which  was  mainly 
written  in  a  big  bedroom  at  the  top  of  the  Duke  of  Corn- 
wall Hotel,  in  Plymouth. 

Pleasant  it  was  that  the  stern  behests  of  duty  took  me, 
in  the  early  days  of  a  lovely  August,  into  Lakeland,  and 
kept  me  there — now  at  Ullswater,  now  at  Keswick,  now 
at  Windermere,  Avhere  my  brother-in-laAV  was  vicar  at  the 
time — for  nearly  six  weeks. 

Earlier  in  that  year  I  had  a  long  spell  in  Ireland.  I  was 
often  called  over  to  Dublin,  w^here  my  old  friends  Nugent 
Robinson  ;  John  Harris,  lessee  of  the  Theatre  Royal ;  and 
Dr.  Tisdall,  Chancellor  of  Christchurch,  made  me  very 
welcome,  and  where  I  would  meet  such  charming  com- 
panions as  Father  Healey,  Professor  Mahaffy,  and  Dr. 
Nedley.  But  this  time  I  made  a  much  longer  stay — had 
several  days  at  Killarney,  the  neighborhood  of  which  I 
thoroughly  examined,  under  the  superintendence  of  Mr. 
Currie,  who  then  managed  the  Railway  Hotel,  and  his 
head-guide,  Stephen  Spillane ;  and  went  on  a  most  inter- 
esting excursion  through  the  wild  parts  of  Kerry  to  Va- 
lentia,  where  I  had  a  day  in  the  Atlantic  cable-house,  and 
obtained  enough  information  and  grasp  of  "  local  color  " 
to  enable  me  to  lay  there  the  scene  of  action  in  the  next 
Christmas  number  of  All  the  Year  Mound,  which  I  called 
"  Slaves  of  the  Lamp." 

There  was  a  good  deal  to  do,  too,  in  Galway  about  that 
time  ;  and  as  the  town  was  not  particularly  inviting,  I 
made  my  head-quarters  at  Salthill,  a  village  on  the  sea,  a 
few  miles  off,  where  the  accommodation  was  quainfr  and 
simple  in  the  extreme,  and  where,  on  a  Sunday  morning, 
all  the  men  and  boys  of  the  neighborhood,  numbering,  per- 


366  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LITE. 

haps,  a  couijle  of  hundred,  bathed  from  the  shore.  They 
mostly  ouly  paddled  within  their  depth,  and  expressed 
great  surprise  at  the  distance  which  I,  a  strong  and  prac- 
tised swimmer  in  those  days,  achieved. 

But  the  pleasant  times  like  all  other  times,  pleasant  or 
unpleasant,  had  to  come  to  an  end.  After  two  years' 
most  happy  wanderings  I  foimd  my  occupation  gone. 
The  purchase  of  the  telegraphs,  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  business  had  been  carried  out  in  all  its  ramifications, 
had  cost  far  more  than  the  Government  had  originally 
intended  to  spend  over  the  affair,  and  the  Treasury  posi- 
tively forbade  our  entertaining  the  idea  of  any  further 
extension  of  empire  or  expenditure  of  capital.  Economy 
and  retrenchment  were  the  order  of  the  day,  and  I  re- 
ceived instructions  to  wind  up  all  the  work  I  had  in  hand 
as  quickly  as  possible,  and  to  enter  upon  nothing  further, 

I  ran  up  to  town  directly  I  received  this  communica- 
tion, and  went  straight  to  the  G.  P.  O.  to  seek  advice  from 
Scudamore.  The  official  storm,  which  shortly  afterwards 
burst  upon  him  with  such  fury,  was  then  only  rumbling 
in  the  distance ;  but  though  I  have  no  doubt  he  know 
perfectly  well  what  was  coming,  and  although  he  was 
beset  on  every  side  by  worries  which  would  have  tried 
the  nerve  or  confused  the  sense  of  most  men,  he  was  too 
good  a  friend  not,  even  in  the  midst  of  this  whirling  ex- 
citement, to  have  given  a  thought  to  the  fortunes  of  those 
in  whom  he  was  interested.  He  saw  me  at  once,  told  me 
he  felt  convinced  I  should  come  to  him ;  that  he  bad, 
therefore,  thought  my  case  out,  and  was  ready  with  liis 
advice.  Tliere  was  no  further  employment  for  me  in  the 
Tolegrapli  Department,  he  told  me  plainly;  there  would 
be  no  further  extension  of  the  system  for  a  very  long 
time,  and  consequently  no  further  "  consents "  to  gain  ; 
after  the  life  of  conij)arative  freedom  which  I  liad  led  for 
so  many  months,  a  return  to  the  ordinary  routine  of  a 
Government  office  would  probably  be  very  irksome  to 
me. 

I  confessed  so  much, but  what  was  I  to  do? 

Scudamore  did  n(jt  hesitate;  he  advised  me  to  resign 
my  appointment,  and  ask  for  superannuation.    The  cliange 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  367 

in  the  constitution  of  the  Secretary's  office  which  he  had 
mentioned  two  years  before  was  now  imminent;  the  posi- 
tion which  I  had  previously  held  was  about  to  be  abol- 
ished, as  part  of  that  large  measure  of  reorganization,  and 
that  would  enable  me  to  count  ten  extra  years  in  my 
claim  for  a  pension,  the  amount  of  which  was  regulated 
by  the  number  of  years  of  service.  I  might  serve  an  ad- 
ditional ten  years,  Scudamore  pointed  out,  and  then  only 
be  superannuated  in  the  same  sum  which  I  should  now 
receive — now,  when  I  was  in  the  prime  of  life  (forty-one), 
with  all  my  faculties  undimmed,  and  with  my  command 
of  the  literary  market  at  its  best. 

Scudamore  urged  his  point  with  that  wonderfully  mag- 
netic enthusiasm  so  peculiarly  his ;  but  at  first  I  felt  too 
much  frightened  to  go  with  him,  to  look  at  the  future 
through  his  roseate  glasses.  I  had  always  been  accus- 
tomed thoroughly  to  indorse  Sir  Walter  Scott's  descrip- 
tion of  literature  as  a  good  stick  to  help  you  along,  but  a 
bad  crutch  to  lean  upon  entirely  for  support;  and  now  for 
nearly  five-and-twenty  years  I  had  always  had  the  com- 
forting reflection  that,  come  what  might,  as  long  as  the 
country  and  the  Bank  of  England  lasted,  there  was  always 
a  certain  sum,  though  not  a  very  large  one,  at  my  dispos- 
al on  the  first  of  every  month.  This  sum  I  should  have, 
not  indeed,  to  give  up  altogether,  but  to  see  considerably 
reduced;  for  the  proposed  pension,  even  under  the  excep- 
tional circumstances  named  by  my  friend,  would  assured- 
ly not  amount  to  anything  like  one  half  of  the  salary,  and 
:ill  the  rest  of  the  outgoing  money  must  be  provided  by 
my  work. 

Of  course  for  many  years  by  far  the  larger  portion  of 
my  income  had  been  the  produce  of  my  pen,  and  I  had 
never  had  any  difliculty  in  placing  anything  I  wrote. 
But  would  that  be  the  case  when,  with  all  my  time  at 
my  disposal,  the  supply  would  be  so  vastly  increased? 
The  ranks  of  the  novelists  were  swelling  year  by  year; 
already  the  halcyon  days  of  large  payments  were  past, 
and  publishers  were  declaring  they  could  not  give  their 
former  prices,  owing  to  the  increase  of  competition. 
Could  I  go  again  into  journalistic  harness,  special  report- 


368  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

ing,  reviewing,  dramatic  criticism?  and,  even  if  I  could, 
should  I  get  the  employment?  I  was  no  longer  in  the 
first  freshness  of  youth,  and  many  men  of  rising  reputa- 
tion were  pressing  forward  and  making  their  presence  in 
the  field  fully  recognized  by  me  and  my  coevals. 

Reflections  such  as  these,  Avhich  it  was  impossible  not 
to  admit,  made  me  look  very  serious  during  the  domestic 
conferences  which  were  held  during  the  two  succeeding 
days.  But  ray  good-fortune  did  not  desert  me  in  this,  as 
it  pi-oved,  most  important  moment ;  and,  feeling  perfectly 
certain  that  Scudamore  had  not  tendered  his  advice  hur- 
riedly or  without  due  consideration,  I  determined  on  fol- 
lowing it. 

My  application,  endorsed  with  the  Secretary's  recom- 
mendation, was  speedily  sent  in  to  the  Treasury;  and  on 
a  bright  morning  in  March,  1872,  exactly  twenty -five 
years  after  I  entered  the  service,  as  I  opened  my  let- 
ters at  a  hotel  in  Falmouth,  I  found  one  among  them  in- 
forming me  that  my  prayer  was  granted,  and  that  I  was 
a  free  man  with  a  pension  of  about  £200  a  year. 

In  the  following  June  I  was  entertained  at  dinner  at 
AVillis's  Rooms  by  nearly  a  hundred  of  my  old  col- 
leagues, with  Frank  Scudamore  in  the  chair;  to  my  great 
delight  several  of  my  private  friends,  among  them  Sala 
and  Parkinson,  were  invited  guests,  and  wishes  for  my 
future  prosperity  were  most  eloquently  and  genially  in- 
voked, 

I  must  not  close  this  chapter  without  further  reference 
to  the  two  members  of  the  Post-office  service  who  are 
best  known  to  the  public,  Rowland  Ilill  and  Anthony 
Trollojie,  with  botli  of  whom  I  was  more  or  less  associ- 
ated ;  and,  as  a  by-stander  is  said  in  the  old  proverb  to 
see  most  of  the  game,  it  is  i)robable  that  I,  who  interfered 
with  neither,  had  better  op])ortunities  for  observing  their 
various  peculiarities  than  if  I  had  occupied  a  less  subor- 
dinate position. 

Tlie  two  men  cordially  hated  each  other.  Trollope  ad- 
mits it  in  his" Autobiography."  "And  then  there  were 
the  feuds — such  delicious  feuds!  I  was  always  an  anti- 
1  unite,  acknowledging,  indeed,  the  great  thing  which  Sir 


LATER  DAYS  IN  TILE  POST-OFFICE.  369 

Rowland  Hill  had  done  for  the  country,  but  believing 
him  to  be  entirely  unfit  to  manage  men  or  to  arrange  la- 
bor. It  was  a  pleasure  to  mc  to  differ  from  him  on  all 
occasions;  and  looking  back  now,  I  think  that  in  all  such 
differences  I  was  right."* 

Sir  Rowland  Hill  was  far  too  cautious  and  reserved 
ever  to  put  his  likes  or  dislikes  into  print.  But  he  hated 
Trollope  very  cordially,  and  could  not  avoid  showing  it 
when  they  were  brought  into  contact.  On  such  occasions 
there  was  a  fund  of  amusement  for  any  by-stander  who 
knew  what  was  going  on.  Trollope  would  bluster  and 
rave  and  roar,  blowing  and  spluttering  like  a  grampus, 
while  the  pale  old  gentleman  opposite  him,  sitting  back 
in  his  arm-chair  and  regarding  his  antagonist  furtively 
under  his  spectacles,  would  remain  perfectly  quiet  until 
he  saw  his  chance,  and  then  deliver  himself  of  the  most 
unpleasant  speech  he  could  frame  in  .the  hardest  possible 
tone. 

I  recollect  one  occasion  when  I  had  attended  a  meeting 
of  the  Surveyors,  which  was  held  in  the  summer-time, 
at  that  good  old-fashioned  inn  the  Red  Lion,  at  Henley, 
for  the  purpose  of  laying  before  them  some  views  of  Sir 
Rowland's.  I  had  secret  instructions  that  if  the  views 
were  controverted  I  was,  on  the  authority  of  the  Secre- 


*  My  friend  and  former  colleague,  Mr.  Pearson  Hill,  Sir  Rowland's  son, 
on  the  appearance  of  Trollope's  "  Autobiography,"  sent  me  the  copy  of  a 
letter  addressed  by  A.  T.  to  Sir  Rowland,  on  the  latter's  retirement  from 
the  service  in  1864.  In  this  letter  Trollope  says,  "I  cannot  let  your  resigna- 
tion from  office  pass  without  assuring  you  of  my  thorough  admiration  for 
the  great  work  of  your  life.  I  have  regarded  you  for  many  years  as  one 
of  the  essential  benefactors  not  only  of  your  own  country,  but  of  all  the 
civilized  world.  I  think  the  thing  you  have  done  has  had  in  it  more  of 
general  utility  than  any  other  measure  which  has  been  achieved  in  my 
time."  Mr.  Hill  seems  to  see  in  this  praise  either  a  refutation  of  the 
"  anti-Hillite  "  statement  or  a  piece  of  insincere  and  fulsome  flattery ;  but 
I  think  the  sentiments  expressed  in  statement  and  letter  are  compatible. 
I  am  more  with  Mr.  Hill  in  his  remarks,  as  an  indication  of  Trollope's 
value  as  a  public  servant,  "that  he  declares  promotion  by  merit  to  be  a 
'damnable  system'  (p.  255);  and  by  his  own  showing  he  left  the  service 
because,  under  that  system,  even  when  administered  by  his  own  brother- 
in-law,  he  could  not  get  the  position  he  wanted." 

16* 


870  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFJl, 

tary,  to  declare  the  meeting  adjourned,  to  re-assemble  at 
the  General  Post  -  office,  under  Sir  Rowland's  chairman- 
ship. As  I  expected,  the  Surveyors  were  by  no  means 
unanimous,  Trollope  as  usual  being  loudest  in  opposition, 
so  I  proceeded  to  act  upon  my  instructions.  These  were 
received  with  much  discontent;  but  my  orders  were  im- 
perative. I  dismissed  the  meeting,  and  the  next  day  the 
Surveyors — some  very  sulky,  none  very  pleased — assem- 
bled in  the  Secretary's  room  at  St.  Martin's. 

I  had  told  the  old  gentleman  exactly  what  had  oc- 
curred, and  I  knew  from  his  snort  of  defiance  as  he  lis- 
tened, and  from  the  battle-light  gleaming  behind  his  spec- 
tacles, that  he  probably  meant  mischief.  He  got  his  first 
shot  at  Trollope  early  in  the  discussion.  Anthony  burst 
in  with  an  interruption,  but  Hill,  pointing  at  him  with 
his  pencil,  said  at  once,  "  One  at  a  time,  Mr.  Trollope,  one 
at  a  time,  if  you  ple.ase  ;  another  gentleman  is  speaking 
now."  And  later  on,  when  some  one  had  been  talking 
of  "  official  phraseology,"  the  old  gentleman  made  a  great 
hit.  "  One  of  you  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  has  used  the 
words  '  official  phraseology.'  Now  official  phraseology  is 
a  good  thing  in  its  way,  but  very  often  it  by  no  means  de- 
scribes the  actually  existing  state  of  affairs.  For  in- 
stance, in  writing  to  you  gentlemen,  1  am  accustomed  to 
describe  myself  in  official  phraseology  as  '  Your  obedient 
humble  servant,'  whereas" — and  here  he  sat  up  and  glared 
round  through  his  glasses — "  whereas  Fm  nothing  of  the 
sortr 

Rowland  Hill  had  a  peculiarly  effective  way  of  saying 
a  caustic  and  unpleasant  thing  :  voice  and  manner  lent 
their  aid  to  send  tlie  shaft  rankling  home.  "  I'm  afraid 
I  must  take  the  blame  of  that,  Sir  Rowland,"  said  one 
of  his  chief  subordinates  to  him.  "You  must,  indeed, 
for  you've  deserved  it,"  was  his  rejoinder.  "I  sliould  be 
very  sorry  to  see  you  adopt  such  a  measure.  Sir  Row- 
land," said  another.  "  You  had  better  reserve  the  expres- 
sion of  your  regret  until  it's  called  for,"  remarked  the  old 
gentleman,  in  cliilling  tone. 

Sir  Rowland  Hill  was  one  of  the  least  eccentric  mem- 
bers of  a  very  strange  family,  and  in  his  oddity  there  was 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE  POST-OFFICE.  371 

always  a  good  deal  of  common-sense.  A  family  story 
illustrates  this.  In  his  later  years — he  lived  to  be  eighty- 
four — he  had  to  be  very  particular  as  to  his  diet,  and  one 
day,  when  the  doctor  had  ordered  him  to  take  half  a  cutlet 
for  dinner,  he  fancied  Lady  Hill  in  her  kindness  had  helped 
him  too  bountifully. 

"  The  doctor  said  half  a  cutlet,  my  dear,"  he  remon- 
strated. "Well,  my  dear,  that  is  only  half."  "I  think 
you've  been  too  generous,  my  dear  ;  this  is  the  larger — " 
"  I  can  assure  you,  my  dear,  it  is  the  exact  half."  After 
a  moment's  hesitation  Sir  Rowland  said,  "  If  that  be  so, 
my  dear,  perhaps  you  won't  mind  giving  me  the  other 
halfP 

He  occasionally  said  a  dry  thing  very  amusingly.  My 
wife  and  I  were  calling  at  Hempstead  one  Sunday ;  the 
weather  was  rough,  "  and,"  said  Lady  Hill,  "  the  wind  is 
so  cold  that  our  doctor  positively  forbade  our  going  to 
church  this  morning."  "  There  was  no  occasion  for  any 
particular  peremi^toriness  in  his  instructions  to  me  in  that 
regard,"  muttered  Sir  Rowland,  who  was  standing  beside 
me.  Throughout  our  relations  at  the  Post-office  he  was 
invariably  kind  to  me  ;  and  when,  some  time  after  he  had 
retired,  I  asked  him  for  his  autograph,  he  sent  it  me  in 
very  pleasant  form.  "  I  am  reading  your  '  Land  at  Last,' " 
he  said  in  his  letter,  "  and  enjoy  it  much,  as  I  have  enjoyed 
all  your  other  novels." 

Sir  Rowland  lived  for  some  fifteen  years  after  his  re- 
tirement from  the  Post  -  office,  and  died,  where  he  had 
long  resided,  at  Bertram  House,  Hampstead,  one  of  the 
latest  acts  of  his  life  being  to  fight  and  overthrow  a  de- 
sign for  building  a  small-pox  hospital  close  by.  He  en- 
joyed novel-reading  and  converse  with  his  brothers  and  a 
few  intimate  friends.  He  could  always  be  drawn  into 
discussing  questions  connected  with  his  old  "  shop,"  and 
never  allowed  that  any  suggestion  about  postal  affairs 
was  of  any  use  unless  it  were  to  be  founcf  in  what  he 
called  "my  pa-amphlet,"  i.e.,  "Post-office  Reform;  its 
Importance  and  Practicability;"  the  painj)hlet  in  wliich  he 
first  astonished  the  official  and  commercial  world  by  set- 
ting forth  his  vi-ews  regarding  a  uniform  rate  of  i^ostage. 


372  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LOJJDON  LIFE. 

He  was  cautious  and  shrewd  to  the  last.  Three  years 
before  his  death  I  saw  him,  and  obtained  his  permission 
for  my  friend  Mr.  Becker  to  visit  and  make  a  pen-por- 
trait of  him,  to  be  included  in  the  series  "  Celebrities  at 
Home,"  in  The  World.  Sir  Rowland  consented,  received 
Mr.  Becker  very  kindly,  and,  aided  by  Mr.  Pearson  Hill, 
supplied  the  visitor  with  much  interesting  information. 
They  showed  him  all  the  curiosities  connected  with  the 
early  postal  regime — the  block  stamps,  the  Mulready 
envelopes,  the  caricatures  of  R.  H.,  and  the  fulminating 
placards  with  which  town  was  posted  at  the  time  of  the 
"  Sunday  labor  "  question. 

But  when  the  old  gentleman  saw  his  visitor  taking  a 
note  of  the  "portable  property" — the  K.C.B.'s  ribbon 
and  star,  the  silver  box  enclosing  the  freedom  of  the  Fish- 
mongers' Company,  the  salver  from  Liverpool,  wine-cool- 
ers from  Glasgow,  candelabra  from  Wolverhampton,  and 
other  valuable  testimonials — he  became  alarmed.  "  Pear- 
son," he  said  to  his  son,  "it  would  be  as  well  if  Mr. 
Becker  did  not  mention  in  his  article  the  exact  locality 
where  these  things  are  kept,  or  he  might  inadvertently 
attract  the  attention  of  burglars  to  the  house  !" 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  imagine  a  greater  contrast  to 
Rowland  Hill  than  Anthony  Trollope,  physically  —  save 
that  both  were  bald  and  si^ectacled — and  mentally.  One 
small,  pale,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  scrap  of 
whisker,  closely  shaven  ;  the  other  big,  broad,  fresh-col- 
ored, and  bushy  -  bearded.  One  calm  and  freezing;  the 
other  bluflF  and  boisterous.  One  cautious  and  calculating, 
weighing  well  every  word  before  utterance,  and  then 
only  choosing  j)hrase8  which  would  convey  his  opinion, 
but  would  give  no  warmth  to  its  expression  ;  the  other 
scarcely  giving  himself  time  to  think,  but  spluttering  and 
roaring  out  an  instantly-formed  opinion,  couched  in  tlie 
very  strongest  of  terms.  "I  differ  from  you  entirely! 
What  was  it  you  said  ?"  he  roared  out  once  to  the  speaker 
who  preceded  him  at  a  discussion  of  Surveyors. 

Troll()]ie  was  very  little  known  in  the  London  office, 
mIii'Iicc  he  had  been  drafted  many  years  previously,  and 
he  certainly  was  not  pojtular  among  the  subordinates  of 


LATER  DAYS  IN  TEE  POST-OFFICE.  373 

his  district.  He  was  a  very  kind-hearted  man  ;  but  with 
persons  in  the  j^osition  of  clerks  in  small  offices,  letter- 
carriers,  etc.,  manner  has  a  great  effect,  and  Trollope's 
manner  was  desperately  against  him.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  man  of  his  time  was  more  heartily,  more  thor- 
oughly, more  unselfishly  charitable  ;  and  he  not  merely 
did  not  let  his  left  hand  know  what  his  right  hand  did  in 
such  matters,  but  he  would  savagely  rap  the  knuckles  of 
any  hand  meddling  with  his  affairs.  The  lai-ger  portion 
of  that  collection  of  books  of  which  he  speaks  with  such 
affection  in  the  "  Autobiography  "  was  purchased  to  relieve 
the  necessities  of  an  old  friend's  widow,  who  never  had 
an  idea  but  that  she  was  doing  Trollope  a  kindness  in 
letting  him  buy  them. 

Trollope  was  as  "  thorough  "  in  his  Post-office  work  as 
he  was  in  his  literary  labors.  His  declarations  of  affection 
for  his  official  employment  are  frequent  in  the  "Autobi- 
ography ;"  and  in  a  speech  which  he  delivered  at  a  meet- 
ing held  at  St.  Martin's-le-Grand  in  1858,  to  establish  a 
Post-office  Library  and  Literary  Institution,  he  said, "  We 
belong  to  the  Civil  Service.  That  service  has  not  always 
been  spoken  of  in  the  terms  I  firmly  believe  it  deserves. 
It  has  been  spoken  of  as  below  those  other  posts  to  which 
the  ambition  of  Englishmen  attaches  itself ;  but  my  belief 
is  that  it  should  offer  as  fair  an  object  of  ambition  as  any 
other  service,  and  that  the  manner  in  which  the  duties  are 
generally  performed  by  most  of  the  departments  with 
which  I  am  acquainted  deserves  that  the  men  belonging 
to  it  should  not  be  placed  in  a  lower  position  than  those 
in  any  other  service.  I  myself  love  the  Post  -  office. 
I  have  belonged  to  it  ever  since  I  left  school.  I  work 
with  all  my  heart,  and  every  one  else  should  do  the  same; 
then  they  will  rise  with  the  department,  and  the  Civil 
Service  will  rise  to  the  level  of  any  other  profession, 
whether  it  be  the  Church,  the  Bar,  the  Army,  or  the 
Navy." 

His  lecture  on  the  "  Civil  Service  as  a  Profession,"  de- 
livered before  his  colleagues,  and  afterwards  printed  in 
the  Cornhill  Magazine,  was  to  the  same  effect.  Never- 
theless, he  resigned  his  situation  in  the  Post-office  at  the 


374  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

age  of  fifty-two,  when  he  was  in  full  bodily  and  mental 
vigor,  thus  cutting  himself  off  from  any  chance  of  a  pen- 
sion, which  is  not  granted,  save  in  the  case  of  illness  or 
under  abolition  of  office,  to  any  person  under  sixty.  This 
■  step  was  partly  the  result  of  pique,  as  he  himself  allows, 
from  his  having  failed  to  obtain  the  post  of  Assistant 
Secretary,  then  vacant,  for  which  he  had  applied.  Such 
an  appointment  would  have  been  worse  than  fatal.  The 
proverbial  bull  in  the  china-shop  would  have  been  a  tame 
and  harmless  animal  compared  to  Trollope  in  the  Assistant 
Secretary's  chair. 

But  the  real  truth  was,  his  love  for  the  Post-office  had 
long  been  evaporating,  and  was  nearly  gone  :  there  were 
no  more  "  delicious  feuds,"  for  Rowland  Hill  had  retired, 
and  Frederick  was  mild  and  inoffensive,  and  not  worth 
fighting ;  and  the  then  Secretary  was  Mr.  Tilley,  Trollope's 
own  brother-in-law.  Moreover,  Trollope  was  a  very  dif- 
ferent man  from  the  unknown  clerk  to  whom  the  Post- 
office  was  all  in  all :  he  was,  if  not  in  the  first,  first  in  the 
second,  flight  of  novelists  of  the  day;  he  was  —  what  he 
had  never  been  in  his  office  —  popular  in  certain  circles, 
notably  at  the  Garrick  Club.  lie  would  have  more  leisure 
for  clubs,  hunting,  and  whist,  and  at  the  same  time  be 
earning  more  money ;  and  he  would  have  opportunities 
for  foreign  and  colonial  travel,  and  consequent  book- 
making,  such  as  he  never  would  have  had  again  in  the 
department,  where  his  official  trips  had  already  been  much 
discussed.  He,  too,  lived  for  fifteen  years  after  his  retire- 
ment a  more  enjoyable  life  than  is  given  to  most  of  us, 
and  all  the  ha])piness  in  which  he  right  honestly  deserved. 

It  has  often  been  noticed  that  Trollope  had  a  very  poor 
notion  of  humor,  either  in  his  works  or  in  private  life. 
He  once  attempted  a  professedly  funny  story,  "  The 
Struggles  of  Brown,  Jones,  and  Robinson,"  but  it  was  a 
ghastly  failure,  as  he  admits;  nor  was  he  a  good  raconteur 
or  conversationalist.  He  told  one  story,  however,  remark- 
ably well,  and  it  always  struck  me  as  one  of  the  funniest 
I  ever  heard.  So  I  give  it,  confirmatory  as  it  also  is  of 
what  I  have  previously  said  regarding  the  eccentricity  of 
some  of  the  members  of  tlie family.     I  liapjjcned  to 


LATER  DAYS  IN  THE   POST-OFFICE.  375 

be  keeping  a  diary  the  last  time  I  heard  it,  and  I  give  the 
extract : 

"  Moiidai/,  IBth  February,  1878. — Escott  gave  a  dinner  to-night  at  the 
Thatched  House  Club,  which  turned  out  very  pleasantly.  Present:  Colo- 
nel Collcy,  C.B.,  Lord  Lyttoii's  private  secretary,  home  from  India  on  leave 
for  a  few  weeks;  J.  A.  Froude,  Anthony  Trollope,  Major  Arthur  Griffiths, 
Dr.  Qnain,  J.  C.  Parkinson,  and  myself.  .  .  .  Trollope  told  a  remarkably 

funny  story  about  a  dinner  given  him  by  F. .     It  appears  that  F. 

and  Trollope,  who  while  in  the  Post-office  together  never  agreed,  had  a  tre- 
mendous row,  and  at  the  subsequent  rapprochement asked  Trollope  to 

dine  with  him  at  Hampstead  at  five  o'clock.    Trollope  went;  found  the  din- 
ing-room full  of  ladies,  twenty  or  thirty  of  them,  and  himself  and the 

only  men  present.     Dinner  was  announced,  and  Trollope  went  to  offer  his 

arm  to  Mrs. ,  when  he  was  cut  short  by ,  who  said,  '  The  ladies 

have  already  dined.'     He  and  Trollope  accordingly  went  down  together  to 
the  dining-room,  where,  at  one  end  of  the  table,  there  was  part  of  a  cold 

leg  of  nnitton,  at  the  other  a  salad — nothing  else  on  the  table.     F. 

told  Trollope  to  sit  down  opposite  the  mutton,  which  he,  being  very  hungry, 

did.     seated  himself  opposite  the  salad,  and  commenced  devouring 

it,  taking  no  mutton.     There  were  no  potatoes  or  any  other  vegetable,  and 
nothing  to  diink,  absolutely  nothing  of  any  kind — no  water,  beer,  or  wine. 

When had  finished  the  salad,  and  Trollope  had  disposed  of  two  huge 

helps  of  mutton, said, '  Shall  we  join  the  ladies  ?'  and  they  went  up- 
stairs.    In  the  dining-room  they  found  the  ladies  seated  in  a  huge  circle, 

with  a  chair  in  the  middle  of  it,  into  which  Trollope  was  inducted.     

said, '  The  ladies  will  now  proceed  to  interrogate  you  upon  various  matters  ;' 
which  they  did." 

I  saw  but  little  of  Trollope  during  the  last,  years  of  his 
life.  I  believe  he  disapproved  of  "society  journalism," 
and  ho  certainly  refused  to  pose  as  a  "  Celebrity  at  Home." 
"  I  allow  that  your  articles  are  cleverly  done,  and  without 
the  least  offence,"  he  wrote,  "  also  that  you  have  manv 
very  distinguished  people  in  your  gallery.  But  I  would 
rather  not."  On  the  other  hand,  he  could  have  liad  no 
serious  objection  to  The  World,  as  on  two  occasions  he 
wrote  to  me  proposing  to  supply  a  novel  for  its  columns. 
I  did  not  think  it  expedient  to  comply  with  his  sugges- 
tion. 


376  FIFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDON   LIFE. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES. 

1872-1873. 

It  is  from  an  "  example  "  of  a  rule  in  the  Eton  Latin 
Grammar  that  we  learn  "  rest  much  delights  a  weary  per- 
son." I  do  not  know  that  I  was  particularly  weary  wlien 
I  finally  retired  from  the  Post-office  service,  but  I  thought 
that  a  little  rest  would  do  me  good.  I  had  been  travel- 
ling constantly  for  two  years,  and  working  hard  the  while. 
It  was  advisable,  I  considered,  that  I  should  lie  fallow  for 
some  short  period  before  entering  again  upon  any  perma- 
nent employment. 

Meanwhile  I  was  not  wholly  idle.  I  was  finishing  a 
novel,  "A  AVaiting  Race,"  and  plotting  another,  "The 
Yellow  Flag."  I  went  to  Rotterdam  for  the  Daily  Neios^ 
to  describe  the  fetes  consequent  on  the  tcrcentenarj^  of 
the  recapture  of  Bridle  from  the  Spaniards,  and  I  wrote 
a  portion  of  the  description  of  the  thanksgiviug  ceremo- 
nies at  St.  Paul's,  for  the  recovery  of  the  Prince  of  AVales, 
for  the  same  journal.  I  was  contributing  regularly  to 
All  tlie  Year  Round  and  the  Ohserrer,  and,  under  a  f(>inale 
j)seudonym,  M'as  writing  a  weekly  article  called  "  Five 
O'clock  Tea"  in  tlic  Qxeoi,  Avhich  was  a  source  of  vast 
amusement  to  me,  evoking,  as  it  did,  a  large  number  of 
letters  from  correspondents,  all  of  whom  imagined  that 
the  writer,  "Mrs.  Sealon,"  was  a  verital>le  ])ersonage. 
Wlion  it  is  leariU'd  that,  in  addition  to  these  trifles,  I  was, 
in  conjunction  with  Mr.  A.  W.  Dubourg,  engaged  upon 
a  three-act  drama  entitled  "Without  Love,"  which  was 
afterwards  produced  at  the  ()lyni]»ic,  it  will  probably  be 
believed  that  I  had  but  lilth^  leisure. 

From  time  to  tinu',  however — indeed,  whenever  I  had 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  3^^ 

a  few  si)are  moments  to  devote  to  reflection — I  was  des- 
perately nervous  about  the  future.  The  regular  income 
— so  regular,  though  not  very  large — had  stopped  forever, 
and  I  was  wholly  dependent  upon  my  own  brains  for  pro- 
vision for  my  family.  I  was  in  full  work,  it  was  true, 
but  I  was  constantly  asking  myself  how  long  that  would 
last.  I  had  been  writing  novels  for  nearly  ten  years,  and 
though,  of  course,  in  consequence  of  collaboration,  the 
strain  upon  invention  was  considerably  lessened,  I  could 
not  help  feeling  I  had  pretty  nearly  told  all  I  had  to  tell, 
and  that  future  attempts  would  be  but  a  going  over  of 
the  old  ground.  In  ordinary  press  -  work,  too,  I  had  as 
much  to  do  as  I  wished  ;  but  I  felt  anything  but  inclined 
to  regard  as  the  main-stay  of  my  fortunes  what  I  had  hith- 
erto only  looked  upon  as  an  adjunct  to  my  income  ;  and 
yet  what  other  means  were  there  by  which  money  might 
be  honestly  made  ? 

This  question  was  answered  in  a  very  curious  way.  I 
have  mentioned  having  at  various  times  delivered  lectures 
on  literary  subjects  in  London  and  large  provincial  towns, 
and  my  clientUe  in  this  matter  had  so  much  increased  that 
my  engagements  as  lecturer  were  bringing  me  in  nearly 
two  hundred  a  year.  In  April,  '72, 1  went  to  Punchestown 
races  for  the  Daily  News,  and  returning  through  Dublin 
the  next  day,  I  delivered,  in  pursuance  of  a  previously- 
made  promise,  before  the  Royal  College  of  Science  in 
Stephen's  Green  a  lecture  which  I  called  "  Good  Authors 
at  a  Discount,"  and  which  was  received  with  a  vast  amount 
of  appreciation  and  applause.  A  week  afterwards  I  was 
describing  this  experience  to  a  friend  who  was  dining  with 
me,  adding  that  I  must  now  try  and  extend  my  lecturing 
connection,  when  he  suddenly  startled  me  by  saying, "  Why 
not  go  to  America?" 

A  strange  man,  this  friend  of  mine,  Henry  Wikoff  by 
name,  a  chevalier  of  some  Spanish  order  of  knighthoocl, 
but  an  American  citizen,  born  in  Philadelphia  early  in 
the  century,  and  living  all  his  life  ever  since :  As  a  very 
young  man,  well  off,  travelling  in  Europe  for  his  pleas- 
ure; then  half  friend,  half  agent  of  Fanny  Elssler,  the 
danseuse,  importing  her  to  America;  bosom  friend  of  the 


378  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

original  James  Gordon  Bennett,  and  writer  in  the  ITew 
York  Herald ;  back  in  Euroi^e,  visiting  Lady  Blessing- 
ton,  and  mixing  with  the  Gore  House  set,  specially  at- 
tracting and  attracted  by  Louis  Napoleon,  an  exile  in 
London.  Imprisoned  in  Italy  for  attempting  to  abduct 
an  heiress  ;  engaged  as  diplomatic  agent,  otherwise  spy, 
by  Lord  Palmerston,  jDOSsibly  by  Louis  Napoleon — whom 
he  visited  as  prisoner  at  Ham,  as  President  of  the  French 
Republic  at  the  Elysee,  as  Emperor  at  the  Tuileries,  as 
prisoner  at  Wilhehnshohe,  and  by  whose  corpse  he  stood 
at  the  lying-in- state  at  Cliiselhurst  —  by  General  Dan 
Sickles,  U.  S.  Minister  at  the  Court  of  her  most  Catholic 
Majesty  Isabella  of  Spain,  from  whom  the  Chevalier's 
cross  was  obtained.  Oscillating  between  London,  Paris, 
and  New  York,  but  residing  chiefly  in  London,  which 
he  much  preferred  ;  trying  to  do  a  little  bit  of  finance, 
writing  away  at  his  memoirs — task  destined  never  to  be 
accomplished — dining  on  regular  days  of  the  week  with 
certain  friends  always  glad  to  see  him  for  his  good  tem- 
per, his  pleasant  cbat,  his  enormous  interest  in  every- 
thing concerning  those  he  liked  ;  finally  fading  away  in 
the  spring  of  tliis  year,  in  a  little  lodging  we  took  for 
him  at  Brighton,  skilfully  ilttended,  sedulously  nursed, 
making  a  painless  end  of  a  restless  life. 

Such  the  Clievalier  Wikoff,  his  outward  appearance  cor- 
responding with  tlie  oddity  of  his  life  and  ways.  A  tall, 
gentlemanly  -  looking  man,  with  a  "  swivel "  eye,  rough- 
liewn  features,  a  carefully-arranged  toupet-vf\g,  a  couple 
of  inches  of  dyed  whisker  ;  frock-coated,  high-cravated, 
and  always  well  shod. 

"  Wliy  not  go  to  America?  Lecturing  is  a  regular 
profession,  tliere,  and  plenty  of  money  to  be  made  at  it. 
Your  voice  is  good,  your  manner  brisk,  light,  and  lively, 
just  tlie  very  thing  to  suit  that  ))eo))l(> !  Get  some  good 
subjects — interesling,  jtiquant,  full  of  descri])tive  touches — 
and  you'll  do  well.  Your  name  is  Avell  known  through 
your  novels  ;  and  they're  an  in<|uisitivc  nation — they'll 
want  to  see  you!" 

Thus  the  Chevalier,  opening  with  one  sentence  an  en- 
tirely new  and  enormous  jjrospect  for  my  consideration. 


UNDER  T&E  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  379 

Beyond  having  sold  my  advanced  sheets  to  New  York 
and  Boston  publishers,  and  having  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  certain  2)leasant  citizens,  my  relations  with  the 
United  States  had  been  absolutely  nil,  and  the  idea  of 
going  there  had  never  entered  my  mind.  But  in  the 
state  of  doubt,  uncertainty,  and  anxiety  in  which  I  was, 
the  Chevalier's  suggestion  came  upon  me  like  a  revela- 
tion, and  I  at  once  laid  it  before  one  or  two  friends, 
seeking  their  advice. 

I  was  generally  re-assured.  Sala's  views,  to  which  I 
attached  much  importance,  as  those  of  a  man  gifted  with 
business  common-sense  as  well  as  brains,  who  had  spent 
some  months  in  the  country,  as  well  as  being  much  with 
travelled  Americans — Sala's  views,  clearly  stated  in  an 
excellent  letter,  were  all  in  favor  of  my  going.  He 
thought  that  the  "  Personal  Recollections  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,"  which  I  had  named,  would  be  very  attrac- 
tive; he  suggested  other  topics,  and  gave  me  some  sound 
advice.  Frank  Scudamore,  Parkinson,  and  other  friends 
were  equally  hopeful;  and  so,  after  many  long  and  suf- 
ficiently wretched  talkings-over  of  the  matter  at  home, 
where  the  thought  of  a  prolonged  separation  had  to  be 
faced,  questions  of  ways  and  means  discussed,  and  pro- 
vision for  supplies  during  absence  arranged,  the  old  gen- 
tleman's suggestion  was  accepted,  the  die  was  cast,  and 
my  determination  taken. 

This  was  in  May;  the  lecture  season  in  America  did  not 
commence  till  October,  and  there  was  no  use  in  my  going 
out,  I  was  informed,  on  account  of  the  heat,  the  emptiness 
of  the  great  cities,  etc.,  until  the  end  of  August.  But  I 
had  plenty  to  do  in  the  interval.  Under  advice,  I  wrote 
to  the  New  York  Lecture  Bureau,  which,  for  a  small  per- 
centage on  their  earnings,  acts  as  an  intermediary  between 
lecturers  and  the  various  associations  desiring  to  be  lect- 
ured to,  sending  a  synopsis  and  some  general  idea  of  the 
lectures  I  proposed  to  deliver,  and  desiring  to  be  ranked 
among  their  clients.  A  polite  reply  assured  me  of  their 
best  services;  my  name  was  well  known,  my  subjects  en- 
ticing, and  I  should  doubtless  do  very  well.  They  would 
expect  to  see  me  in  September. 


380  mXY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Encouraged  by  this,  I  went  to  work  with  a  will.  I  re- 
duced the  Egyjjtian  Hall  entertainment  to  the  "mono- 
polylogue  "  form  in  which  I  had  originally  written  it  for 
myself,  smartened  it  up  with  some  fresh  jokes,  and  resus- 
citated the  excellent  crayon  heads  by  John  Leech,  Frith, 
and  Marcus  Stone,  so  happily  illustrating  the  various 
characters,  which  had  long  been  laid  by.  I  wrote  my 
''Personal  Recollections  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray," 
and  for  this  Mr.  John  O'Connor  painted  me  two  fair-sized 
views  in  distemper  on  canvas,  mounted  on  rollers  for 
facile  transit,  one  of  Gadshill  Place,  the  other  of  the  house 
which  Thackeray  built  for  himself  on  Kensington  Palace 
Green,  where  he  died.  Both  houses  lent  themselves  ad- 
mii'ably  to  effect,  and  both  pictures  were  very  effective. 
They  were  highly  ajipreciated  by  those  Avho  saw  them, 
but  they  were  lost  or  stolen  within  a  couple  of  months  of 
my  arrival  in  America.  In  addition  to  these,  Mr.  Leslie 
Ward,  then  a  very  young  man,  but  giving  promise  of  all 
his  present  cleverness,  made  for  me  in  cra3'ons,  and  of  large 
size,  a  sketch  of  Dickens  from  a  private  photograph,  repre- 
senting him  sipping  a  glass  of  wine  as  he  leaned  against 
the  portico  at  Gadshill,  and  a  reproduction  of  Boehm's 
Avonderful  statuette  of  Thackeray.  These  created  great 
interest  everywhere,  and  I  am  fortunate  enough  to  have 
l)reserved  them.  Then  I  furbished  up  and  retouched  my 
very  first  and  original  lecture,  "  Good  Authors  at  a  Dis- 
count," and  made  full  notes  for  anotlier  on  "The  British 
Parliament,"  to  be  extended  out  there  if  occasion  should 
arise. 

Working  away  all  this  time  at  "A  Waiting  Race  "  and 
"The  Yellow  Flag"  simultaneously  —  the  former  nearly 
finished,  to  a]»pc:ir  in  three-volume  shai)e  ;  the  latter  to 
run  as  a  serial  through  .III  (he  Year  Hound.  A  flying 
visit  to  France  on  literary  business,  forty  -  eight  hours' 
travelling  and  twelve  hours'  rest.  Fechter  in  the  Calais- 
Paris  train,  quantum  mutatusf  bloated,  red-faced,  short  in 
tcnijxT  and  rough  in  manner,  all  his  charming  courtesy 
lost,  but  i)romising  to  do  everything  for  me  in  America, 
wliere  lie  was  then  domiciled.  A  flying  visit  to  Ireland, 
to  the  bedside  of  one  c)f  my  boys,  stricken  with  typhoid 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  381 

fever  at  Portarlington.  A  scries  of  leave-taking  dinners: 
with  the  Bellews,  where  I  met  Mr.  Morton  MacMichael, 
proprietor  of  a  leading  Philadelphia  journal,  and  a  most 
delightful  man;  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W.  II.  Wills,  at  their 
charming  place,  Sherrards,  near  Wei  wyn,  where  we  stopped 
from  Saturday  till  Monday;  with  Mr.  Julius  Beer,  propri- 
etor of  the  Observer,  Edward  Dicey,  and  a  party  at  Green- 
wich ;  with  the  Cashel  Hoeys  ;  with  R.  W.  Edis,  at  the 
Arts  Club;  with  the  Salas,  then  staying  at  the  White  Hart 
Hotel  at  Margate,  where  we  had  the  best  of  dinners  in 
the  tiniest  of  rooms.  More  last  words  with  all  kinds  of 
business  people ;  more  last  words  with  Charles  Dickens 
about  the  Christmas  number  of  All  the  Year  Mound, 
which  I  had  arranged  again  to  write  for  him,  sending  MS. 
from  America  ;  more  last  words  of  injunction  from  Wi- 
koff ;  the  sharp  pangs  of  adieu;  and  then,  accompanied  by 
my  faithful  secretary  Simpson,  I  left  town  for  Liverpool 
on  the  30th  August,  18V2,  to  sail  for  New  York  in  the  Ca- 
nard Company's  ship  Cuba  the  next  day. 

I  shall  not  readily  forget  that  evening  at  the  North- 
western Hotel.  I  had  parted,  for  a  long  time  at  least, 
with  all  I  loved  in  the  Avorld ;  I  was  going  among 
strangers  ;  I  had  relinquished  the  calling  in  which  I  had 
been  engaged  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  and,  looking  at 
my  position  plainly,  I  could  not  fail  to  recognize  the  fact 
that,  with  a  family  to  support  and  at  forty-one  years  of 
age,  I  was  virtually  beginning  life  again,  and  going  forth 
to  seek  my  fortune.  The  animal  spii-its,  objurgated  so 
many  years  before  by  Sir  Rowland  Hill,  prevented  my 
taking  an  utterly  desponding  view  of  affairs,  but  I  was 
in  a  sufficiently  low  frame  of  mind  ;  and  I  well  remember 
the  delight  with  which  I  encountered  an  old  Post-office 
friend,  Christopher  Sayers,  who,  being  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, had  run  over  to  have  a  chat,  and  the  joy  with  Avhich 
I  discovered  that  the  Bancrofts  were  playing  an  engage- 
ment at  the  theatre.  A  dinner  with  Sayers,  and  a  visit 
behind  the  scenes,  passed  the  evening  ;  and  the  next  day 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bancroft,  with  whom  I  had  long  been  on 
friendly  terms,  came  out  in  the  Cuba's  tender  to  sec  the 
last  of  me.     To  them  were  confided  the  latest  messages 


382  FIFTY   YEARS  OP   LONDON   LIFE. 

for  those  I  had  left  at  home  ;  and  when  their  kindly  faces 
faded  away,  I  felt  the  full  gravity  of  the  step  I  had 
taken,  and  began  to  be  uncomfortably  dubious  as  to  its 
wisdom. 

It  was,  however,  too  late  to  moralize,  for  the  tender  was 
rapidly  disappearing,  and  we  were  fairly  off.  "  Strange 
company  we  harbored"  on  board  the  Steamship  Cuba, 
though  as,  after  leaving  Queenstown,  we  ran  into  a  storm 
which  continued  for  three  days,  I  saw  only  those  half-doz- 
en of  my  fellow-passengers  whose  legs  and  stomachs  were 
sufficiently  strong  and  steady  to  permit  their  pacing  the 
deck  or  sitting  at  the  table.  When  the  weather  moder- 
ated, and  at  once  became  lovely,  I  found  we  had  on  board 
several  musical  celebrities,  who  were  proceeding  for  a 
tour  in  America,  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  Henry  Jarrett, 
the  well-known  operatic  agent.  Among  them  were  Ma- 
dame Lucca,  with  her  parents  —  strange  little  Viennese 
Jews,  for  all  the  world  like  the  people  who  in  my  youth- 
ful days  used  to  sit  at  the  doors  of  the  old  houses  in  the 
Frankfort  Juden-gasse  ;  Anton  Rubinstein,  with  his  grim 
C'almuck  face  and  massive  brow  ;  and  Wieniawski,  the 
celebrated  Polish  violinist. 

The  last-named  shared  in  the  daytime  the  cabin  of 
the  chief  engineer,  a  dry  Scotchman,  himself  an  amateur 
of  the  violin,  whose  whole  desire  was  to  get  his  distin- 
guished visitor  to  give  him  a  "taste  of  his  quality." 
Wieniawski,  however,  persistently,  though  courteously, 
declined  ;  but  one  day  towards  the  end  of  the  voyage, 
allowing  himself  to  be  persuaded,  he  took  up  the  Scotch- 
man's instrument,  and  for  an  hour  wrung  from  it  divine 
liarmony.  When  it  was  over,  the  engineer  came  into  the 
doctor's  cabin,  where  I  was  sitting,  and,  with  a  grin  of 
triumph,  said,  "Eh,  doctor,  but  I've  got  a  scrape  out  of 
the  beggar  at  last  !" 

Miss  C-Iara  Louise  Kellogg,  the  American  jirinia  donna; 
Mr.  Mark  Smith,  an  American  actor  who  had  been  i>lay- 
ing  with  much  success  in  Mrs.  John  Wood's  conij»any  at 
the  St.  James's,  one  of  the  most  genial  and  deliglitful  of 
men  ;  and  Miss  Clara  Doria,  a  member  of  the  Farepa- 
Kosa  trou)>c,  were  also  on  board,  as  were  Colonel  Steele 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  383 

of  the  Albany,  and  Mr.  Edwards  Pierrepont,  afterwards 
U.  S.  Minister  in  London. 

The  voyage  was  pleasant  enough,  though  wholly  un- 
eventful, and  there  was  only  one  incident  worth  record- 
ing. I  had  noticed  from  time  to  time  that  a  little  spoffish 
American  gentleman,  who  invariably  wore  a  2yince-nez 
glass,  had  regarded  me  with  great  curiosity,  following 
me  up  and  down  the  deck,  and  taking  up  coigns  of  vantage 
for  observation  purposes.  About  the  fifth  day  out  this 
gentleman  met  me  face  to  face.     We  both  stopped. 

"  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  ?"  said  he,  interrogatively. 

I  "  owned  up." 

"  Mr.  Yates,  sir,"  said  he,  "  I  should  like  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  shaking  hands  with  you,  sir  !  I  am  pi-oud  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  such  a  distinguished,"  etc. 

Of  coui'se  I  was  covered  with  blushes  as  I  shook  hands 
Avith  the  gentleman,  but  I  could  not  help  asking  him  why, 
since  he  wished  to  make  my  acquaintance,  he  had  not 
done  so  previously  :  he  was  probably  aware  who  I  Avas. 

"Wal,  sir,"  he  said,  "that  is  so!  They  had  told  me 
at  the  Cunard  office  that  the  author  of  '  The  Yellow  Flag ' 
would  be  on  board,  and  I've  been  looking  out  for  him 
ever  since  we  sailed.  But  I  never  thought  it  was  you, 
sir  !  You're  not  my  notion  of  the  build  of  an  author,  sir  ! 
I  thought  you  vms  a  BrifAsh  athlete  going  out  to  wrestleP^ 

On  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  the  11th  September, 
we  steamed  up  the  beautiful  bay  of  New  York,  and  landed 
in  Jersey  City.  We  were  boarded  by  the  usual  band  of 
interviewing  reporters,  but  they  made  at  once  for  the  mu- 
sical celebrities  ;  and  to  the  very  fow  who  condescended 
to  such  small  game  as  myself  I  promised  all  facilities  at 
the  hotel,  the  Brevoort  House,  to  which  I  had  been  warm- 
ly recommended  by  George  A.  Sala,  who  pronounced  it, 
what  I  could  certainly  endorse,  the  best  hotel  in  the  world. 
There  were  crowds  on  the  Avharf,  personal  friends  and 
relatives  of  most  of  the  passengers,  but  of  course  there 
was  no  one  to  greet  me.  At  last  a  young  gentleman,  in 
a  very  shabby  straw-hat  and  sand-shoes,  came  up  to  me, 
and  introduced  himself  as  a  young  Englishman  with  whom 
I  had  recently  had  some  correspondence  on  journalistic 


384  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

matters.  We  walked  up  and  down  the  wharf  while  the 
baggage  was  being  got  ready  for  Customs  examination, 
and  he  told  me  that,  having  heard  I  was  coming  out  to 
lectui'e,  he  had  made  it  his  business  to  call  at  the  Lecture 
Bureau,  and  see  what  engagements  they  had  procured  for 
me.  He  found  there  was  not  a  single  one,  and  he  volun- 
teered his  opinion  that  I  had  made  a  great  mistake  in 
coming  to  America  !  This,  with  the  sight  of  a  funeral 
car,  which  was  the  first  object  that  met  my  gaze  as  I 
drove  from  the  wharf  to  the  city,  was  my  welcome  to  my 
new  sphere  of  labor. 

But  my  hearty  reception  by  Mr.  Waite,  the  host  of  the 
Brevoort  House,  and  the  delightful  bed  and  bath  room 
which  he  appropriated  to  me,  and  an  excellent  dinner  at 
Delmonico's,  Avhere  I  entertained  the  Cuba's  doctor  and 
my  dolorous  friend  of  the  shabby  straw-hat,  soon  restored 
me  to  my  usual  spirits.  I  was  duly  interviewed  the  next 
day,  and  was  found  by  one  gentleman  to  be  "hearty  in 
bearing,  -wade-awake  and  genial,  a  man  Avho  has  watched 
the  world  with  a  keen  and  observant  eye."  Anotlier  de- 
scribed me  as  "of  prepossessing  appearance,  easy,  grace- 
ful, and  well-spoken."  A  third  was  more  photographic. 
"He  is  not  less  than  six  feet  in  height,  strongly  built, 
broad-chested,  large  square  head,  great  protruding  black 
eyes,  heavy  under-jaw,  and  a  mouth  expressive  at  once  of 
firmness,  taste,  and  good  temper.  He  is  something  over 
forty  years  of  age,  hut  apart  from  a  visible  tendency  to 
baldness  on  the  crown  of  the  head,  there  is  nothing  to  show 
that  'the  enemy'  has  yet  obtained  any  decided  hold  upon 
him." 

Then  came  a  d(>putation  from  tlie  Lotos  Club,  kindly 
proposing  a  "  reception  "  in  my  honor  on  an  evening  to 
be  settled  ;  and  then  I  went  to  the  Lecture  Bureau,  where 
I  found  matters  by  no  means  so  dismal  as  had  been  repre- 
sented. True,  there  Avere  no  engagements  entered  for 
me;  but,  as  Mr.  Jirdsford,  the  manager,  pointed  out,  there 
was  nothing  wonderful  in  that,  considering  that  my  pro- 
grammes liad  only  just  been  distributed,  .and  among  the 
far-off  Institutes  and  associations  T  was  ])roba1»ly  ■wholly 
unknown.     After  a  long  business  talk  .Mr.  IJrelsfonl   \)Y0- 


rXDER  THE   STARS  AND   STRIPES.  385 

fessed  to  he  satisfied  with  my  chances.  Let  me  satisfy 
the  New  York  people,  and  above  all  the  New  York  press, 
and  my  provincial  success  would  follow  as  a  matter  of 
course.  At  least  a  month  must  elapse  before  the  lect- 
ure-going classes  would  be  back  from  the  country  and 
the  watering-places,  and  Mr.  Brelsford's  advice  was,  that 
during  that  time  I  should  see  and  be  seen  as  much  as 
possible. 

The  upshot  was,  that  after  being  photographed  at  Gur- 
ney's — a  shie  qud  non  for  all  lecturers — I  started  off  with 
some  Cuba  acquaintances  for  Saratoga  and  Lake  George. 
Returning,  I  went  to  the  "  reception  "  at  the  Lotos  Club 
in  my  honor,  and  M^as  warmly  Avelcomed  by  the  president, 
Mr.  Wliitelaw  Reid,  then  and  now  editor  of  the  N'eio  York 
Tribune,  in  a  graceful  and  racy  speech.  Invitations  to 
all  kinds  of  festivals  poured  in  amain.  The  most  charm- 
ing of  cultivated  citizens  of  the  world,  "Uncle"  Sam 
Ward,  who  died  at  Pegli  this  spring,  was  my  fellow- 
lodger  at  the  Brevoort,  and  with  his  bosom-friend,  W.  H._ 
Hurlbert,  then  the  accomplished  editor  of  the  Neio  York 
World,  was  never  tired  of  entertaining  me.  Under  their 
auspices  I  visited  Jerome  Park  races,  and  was  made  an  hon- 
orary member  of  the  Manhattan  Club.  I  was  also  on  the  ^ 
honorary  list  of  the  Union,  the  Union  League,  the  Cen- 
tury, and  five  other  clubs,  besides  being  made  a  life- 
member  of  the  Lotos.  A  grand  dejeuner  given  me  at 
Delmonico's  by  the  well-known  publishing  firm  of  Harper 
&  Brothers,  and  much  other  social  enjoyment,  I  owed  to 
the  kindness  of  Mr.  W.  A.  Seaver,  who  became  one  of  my 
most  intimate  friends. 

In  the  day-time  I  was  working  hard  with  my  secretary 
Simpson,  dictating  to  him  chapters  of  "  The  Yellow  Flag," 
which  were  sent  over  to  All  the  Year  Round  as  they  were 
finished,  I  had  hopes  of  completing  the  story  before  com- 
mencing my  lecture  -  work ;  but  one  day  Mr.  Brelsford 
made  his  appearance  with  the  news  that  I  was  wanted  to 
open  the  ncAv  Star  Course  of  Lectures  at  Chicago  on  the 
30th  inst.  This  I  at  once  refused.  I  told  Mr.  Brelsford 
that,  little  as  I  knew  about  it,  I  felt  it  would  be  madness 
for  me  to  make  my  debut  anywhere  but  in  New  York,  or 

17 


386  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

to  attempt  to  win  pi-ovincial  audiences  without  the  cachet 
of  the  New  York  press.  Mr.  Brelsford,  admitting  some 
cogency  in  my  argument,  declared  that  Chicago  afforded 
me  a  good  opening  ;  and  after  some  discussion  it  was 
finally  arranged  that  the  Chicago  engagement  should  be 
accepted,  and  that  efforts  should  be  made  to  secure  a 
large  hall,  that  I  might  make  a  previous  appearance  in 
New  York. 

Accordingly,  on  the  evening  of  Friday  —  always  my 
lucky  day — the  2Yth  September,  1872, 1  made  my  first  ap- 
pearance before  an  American  audience  at  the  Association 
Ilall,  corner  of  Fourth  Avenue  and  Twenty-third  Street, 
Ne\r  York,  with  my  lecture,  "Modern  Society."  The 
hall  was  crammed,  some  two  thousand  five  hundred  peo- 
ple being  present.  In  England  I  had  always  been  a  little 
nervous  immediately  before  appearing  on  the  platform, 
l)ut  on  this  occasion,  as  on  every  other  in  America,  I  was 
perfectly  comfortable,  and  chatted  with  Simpson  until  I 
stepped  forth.  I  had  a  very  hearty  reception  ;  laughter 
and  applause  began  at  once  and  continued  throughout ; 
and  so  little  embarrassed  was  I  that  when  I  was  placing 
upon  the  easel  Mr.  ]\[arcus  Stone's  admirable  pictorial  il- 
lustration of  one  of  my  characters,  which  by  chance  strong- 
ly resembled  Horace  Greeley  of  the  Tribune,  then  stand- 
ing for  the  Presidentship,  and  I  said,  "I  can  assure  you, 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  this  was  not  intended  as  the  like- 
ness of  any  prominent  American  citizen,"  the  hit  made 
was  immense. 

When  the  lecture  concluded,  amid  loud  cheering  and 
hearty  shouts  of  aj)])r()val,  T  was  surroundi'd  by  the  officers 
of  th(!  Bureau  ami  friends,  who  all  assured  nu'  that  I  had 
acliicved  a  great  success.  A  similar  ()j)ini()n  was  given 
by  Mr.  Seaver,  who,  with  Paul  Lindau,  brother  of  Rudolf 
Ijindau,  the  (merman  author,  bore  me  off  to  supper  at  Del- 
monico's.  When  I  arrived  home  at  the  Brevoort,  Mr. 
Waite,  the  landlord,  of  whose  j)ortly  form  I  had  caught 
a  glimpse  in  the  lecture-hall,  was  sitting  uj)  to  welcome 
me.  "Couldn't  resist  waiting  to  see  you,  Mr.  ^'ates  !"  he 
said,  gras|)ing  my  hand.  "  You'll  do  well  here,  sir  !  your 
style  and  manner  just  suit  our  jieo|>le  !" 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  387 

It  was  almost  the  echo  of  Wikoff's  prophecy,  and  I 
went  to  bed  with  a  light  heart,  hopeful  for  the  future. 

Be  sure  that  I  had  all  the  daily  papers  on  my  bed  the 
next  morning  as  soon  as  I  roused.  The  favorable  verdict 
was  echoed  by  all,  the  longest  notice  being  given  by  the 
Herald,  whose  criticism  on  this  (to  me)  most  important 
occasion  I  now  reproduce  : 

EDMUND  YATES  MAKES  HIS  BOW. 
"Modern  Society." 

THE  FASHIONABLE  WORLD  ATTEND  THE  FIRST  LECTURE  OF  THE  ENGLISH 
NOVELIST  IN  LARGE  NUMBERS. — HIGH  AND  LOW  LIFE,  BALLS,  DINNERS, 
THE  PARK,  THE  OPERA,  AND  THE  SEA-SIDE,  THE  COUNTING-HOUSE  AND 
THE  MUSICAL  PARTIES. —  THE  YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATION 
AMUSED,  EDIFIED,  AND  ENTERTAINED. 

Last  evening,  in  the  presence  of  a  fashionable  and  intellectual  audience 
of  2500  persons  of  both  sexes,  Mr.  Edmund  Hodgson  Yates,  the  well-known 
English  novelist  and  lecturer,  made  his  dlihut  at  the  Hall  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  and  the  verdict  pronounced  by  those  2500  well-bred 
and  well-informed  people  will,  no  doubt,  be  accepted  as  final  by  the  Ameri- 
can public — a  public  which,  though  very  hospitable,  is  also  very  hard  to 
please.  In  the  United  States,  of  living  English  novelists  Charles  Reade  is 
read  more  than  any  other,  and  Edmund  Yates  comes  next  in  rank.  Born 
in  1831,  and  known  as  the  dramatic  critic  of  the  London  Daily  News,  and 
as  editor  of  the  Temple  Bar  Magazine,  and  having  now  considerable  fame 
as  a  constant  contributor  to  All  the  Year  Round,  he  met  with  an  intelli- 
gent, as  well  as  appreciative,  audience  last  evening,  who  knew  him  through 
the  columns  of  those  periodicals  and  magazines,  in  addition  to  the  fact 
that  they  also  bore  in  their  minds  a  vivid  remembrance  of  his  literary  in- 
dividuality in  the  series  of  novels  that  have  appeared  from  time  to  time 
over  his  name,  the  best  known  of  which  are  "  Running  the  Gauntlet," 
"  Black  Sheep,"  "  Kissing  the  Rod,"  "  Broken  to  Harness,"  "  Land  at 
Lust,"  and  the  serial  now  running  the  magazines  with  the  title  of  "The 
Yellow  Flag."  The  best  newspaper- work  of  Mr.  Yates,  perhaps,  was  that 
done  by  him  for  a  couple  of  years  in  the  London  Morning  Star,  in  the 
column  headed  the  ''Flaneur." 

To  many  of  the  people  who  saw  the  novelist  last  evening  for  the  first 
time,  Mr.  Yates  more  than  filled  the  ideal  formed  of  him.  It  is  a  common 
and  popular  superetition  that  every  man  who  writes  half  a  dozen  success- 
ful books  must  have  a  pale  and  consumptive  appearance ;  that  he  must  be 
weak  at  the  knees ;  that  he  will  be  afflicted  with  bad  hearing,  and  a  diffi- 
culty in  his  eyesight.  Therefore,  all  were  more  than  agreeably  disap- 
pointed when  a  tall  six-foot  gentleman,  in  unexceptionable  evening  dress, 
with  the  orthodox  white  tie,  the  brawn  and  muscle  of  a  Lifeguardsman, 
stepped  upon  the  platform  to  receive  one  of  the  heartiest  welcomes  ever 


388  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

given  by  a  New  York  audience  to  a  stranger.  Mr.  Yates  has  large  mas- 
sive features,  parts  his  dark  hair  in  the  middle,  and  he  got  to  work  last 
evening  with  the  ease  and  force  of  an  accomplished  cricketer.  To  be 
brief,  he  bowled  his  way  into  the  hearts  of  his  audience,  and  made  them 
feel  as  easy  as  he  felt  himself,  which,  without  any  disrespect  to  Mr.  Yates, 
is  no  slight  accomplishment.  There  were  no  dramatic  effects  or  accessa- 
ries, there  being  simply  a  mahogany  reading-desk,  a  big  pitcher  of  ice- 
water,  a  large  tumbler  to  drink  it  from,  and  a  dozen  or  so  of  cartoons  and 
crayons  made  by  Frith,  John  Leech,  and  Marcus  Stone,  which  were  amply 
illustrative  of  the  characters  introduced  by  Mr.  Yates  in  his  lecture. 

The  lecture  was  entitled  "  Modern  Society,"  and  has  been  delivered  by 
its  author  for  a  hundred  nights  in  London.  Mr.  Yates  dealt  gently  with 
his  subjects,  and  now  and  then  little  bits  of  his  books  and  magazine  arti- 
cles appeared  ;  but  their  appearance  was  not  obtrusive,  and  hearty  laugh- 
ter and  applause  were  yielded  to  the  energy  of  his  description  and  the 
excellent  drollery  of  his  mimicry.  There  is  a  placidity  and  ease  about 
English  humor  that  strongly  contrasts  with  the  grotesqueness  and  wild 
abandon  of  American  humor ;  but  the  most  earnest  admirers  of  Artemus 
Ward  or  Mark  Twain  cannot  but  endorse  the  clear-sighted  and  pungent 
terseness  of  the  hits  made  by  Edmund  Yates  at  the  fashionable  follies  of 
the  day.  He  is  a  close  observer  of  whatever  is  ridiculous  and  overstrained 
in  the  social  anachronisms  of  the  world  in  which  he  moved,  and  liis  sketches 
of  the  physician  who,  after  the  manner  of  Abernethy,  but  lacking  his 
ability,  first  pockets  the  patient's  guinea  and  then  insults  him ;  of  the 
"  lady's  doctor,"  who  is  shod  with  velvet,  and  whose  tongue  is  disgustingly 
oleaginous ;  of  the  "  old-young  Indy,"  who  has  seen  too  many  watering- 
places  ;  of  the  "dawdling  swell,"  who  carries  off  the  belle  of  the  evening 
from  the  "  bashful  young  man  "  with  a  yawn  and  a  sneer ;  and  of  the  too 
indulgent  "  papa  "  at  the  sea-side,  who  is  a  bear  in  his  counting-house  in  the 
city — were  all  well  done,  and  elicited  the  heartiest  tributes  from  an  audi- 
ence who  were  more  than  eager  to  anticipate  every  joke  and  stroke  of 
humor  made  manifest  during  the  evening.  There  is  nothing  bitter  or 
coarse  or  painful  in  the  style  of  Mr.  Yates,  and  the  ladies  jiarticularly 
seemed  to  enjoy  the  entertaiiunent ;  and  where  the  ladies  are  secured  it  is 
unnecessary  to  say  that  more  than  half  of  the  battle  has  been  fought  and 
won.  In  fine,  Edmund  Yates,  on  his  first  evening  in  America,  has  suc- 
ceeded ;  and  now  he  needs  but  to  do  one  thing,  and  that  is,  to  give  his  au- 
dience a  variety,  and  his  trinmph  is  made  certain. — New  York  Herald,  Sat- 
urday, Sept.  28,  1872.* 

These  notices — and  all  were  equally  good — had  imme- 
diate effect.  Before  I  went  down  to  l)re':ikfast  I  had  a 
visit   from   the    manager  of   The  Fireside  CoDipauioii,,  a 

*  I  have  a  strong  idea,  though  no  positive  proof,  that  this  critique  was 
written  by  Mr.  O'Kelly,  now  M.  P.  for  Roscommon,  who  was  at  that  time 
fiigngcd  on  the  Herald, 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND   STRIPES.  389 

cheap  publication  with  a  large  circulation,  with  whom  I 
agreed,  for  a  sum  of  £500,  to  write  a  short  serial  sensa- 
tional story  in  ten  chapters,  to  commence  within  a  month 
— this  with  "  The  Yellow  Flag  "  unfinished,  and  the  prom- 
ised All  the  Year  Mound  Christmas  Number  unthought 
of  !*  The  temptation,  however,  was  too  great,  and,  un- 
der the  reaction  of  joy  caused  by  the  sudden  improve- 
ment in  my  pi'ospects,  I  did  not  care  what  amount  of 
work  I  undertook. 

On  the  evening  of  that  same  day  (Saturday,  28th  Sep- 
tember) I  started  for  Chicago,  arriving  there,  after  a  thir- 
ty-six hours'  journey,  on  Monday  morning.  The  whole 
of  that  day  was  spent  in  wandering  over  the  city,  fruit- 
lessly searching  for  ray  box  of  cartoon  portraits,  which 
had  got  astray  in  the  train,  and  without  which  I  had  to 
lecture  at  night.  This  search,  however,  afforded  me  ex- 
cellent opportunity  for  studying  the  place,  which  was  in 
a  most  interesting  state,  exactly  a  year  having  elapsed 
since  its  devastation  by  the  great  fire,  and  new  quarters, 
streets,  and  houses  already  springing  uj)  with  inconceiva- 
ble rapidity.  In  this  peregrination  round  the  blackened 
walls  and  debris  of  the  still  standing  portion  of  the  burnt 
city  I  found  the  idea  for  the  framework  of  the  Christmas 
Number  for  All  the  Year  Hound,  for  which  I  had  been 
long  seeking,  and  set  to  work  to  write  it  under  the  title 
of  "Doomsday  Camp." 

On  my  return  from  Chicago,  where  I  lectured  twice,  I 
found  my  friends  of  the  Bureau  in  high  spirits  at  my  suc- 
cess, and  full  of  pi'ophecy  of  future  engagements.  The 
whole  of  the  daytime  I  was  compelled  to  devote  to  my 
literary  work,  and  the  genial  hospitality  pressed  upon  me 


*  The  story  was  called  "A  Bad  Lot,"  and  served  its  purpose;  was  in- 
deed so  successful  that  I  wrote  another  for  the  same  firm.  It  was  adver- 
tised most  extensively  and  most  oddly  by  means  of  a  huge  wood-cut  about 
six  feet  long  and  three  feet  broad — a  rough  reproduction  of  a  photograph 
of  myself.  At  the  top  of  this  was  my  name,  at  the  bottom  "A  Bad  Lot." 
These  Brobdingnagian  portraits  were  most  lavishly  disseminated  ;  not  only 
in  New  York,  but  in  all  large  cities,  wherever  I  travelled,  I  found  them; 
and  as  they  were  posted  on  the  walls,  not  in  single  files,  but  in  battalions, 
they  were  painfully  conspicuous. 


390  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LQ^E. 

was  so  vast  that  my  evenings  were  always  most  agreeably 
occupied.  Immediately  after  my  return,  I  dined  with  the 
Liberal  Club  of  New  York,  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of 
the  chairman,  Horace  Greeley,  who  was  at  that  time  op- 
posing General  Grant  as  candidate  for  the  Presidentship, 
and  who  questioned  me  much  about  Rowland  Hill  and 
English  postal  matters,  and  about  Dickens,  for  Avhom  he 
professed  the  highest  admiration. 

A  few  nights  afterwards  I  was  present  at  a  thoroughly 
American  demonstration,  a  mass-meeting  of  women,  held 
at  the  Cooper  Institute  in  support  of  the  candidature  of 
General  Grant.  The  hall  was  -packed  to  suffocation. 
Looking  down  from  the  platform,  the  scene  was  like  a 
corn-field  of  faces  thickly  packed  together.  Here  and 
there  a  negro's  face  ajjpeared,  and  at  irregular  intervals 
a  black  woman's  form.  The  platform  was  crowded  with 
the  friends  and  families  of  the  fair  speakers,  who,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  applauded  loudly  and  always  at  the 
wrong  time,  if  the  manifestations  of  the  audienc6  could 
be  taken  as  a  criterion.  A  number  of  policemen  were 
present,  sitting  about  or  lounging  against  the  pillars  of 
the  hall. 

The  great  gun  of  the  meeting,  as  announced  formally, 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  was  not  present,  but  she 
sent  a  letter,  which  was  read  by  the  chairman,  Mr.  Luther 
R.  Marsh,  a  well-known  lawyer,  who  appeared  in  evening 
dress  and  wore  a  blazing  red  necktie.  Whenever  the 
courage  of  the  female  speakers  faltered  under  the  storm 
of  hisses  when  they  mentioned  Grant's  name,  or  wlien  a 
wild  uproarious  cheer  was  raised  for  Greeley,  Mr.  JNLarsh 
stepped  into  the  breach  with  his  eye-glass  and  his  red 
necktie  and  his  evening  dress-coat,  and  talked  of  tlie  reb- 
els. He  said  nothing  new,  but  he  said  a  great  many  bit- 
ter things  which  ]>rovoked  hisses  and  disa])proval. 

'IMie  jirettiest  of  the  lady  speakers  was  Mrs.  or  Miss  Lil- 
ly Devereaux  IJlake  (it  will  be  observed  that  all  the  speak- 
ers have  three  names),  and  she  was  much  applauded  be- 
cause she  spoke  but  for  twenty  minutes.  Miss  or  Mrs. 
JMuke  was  dressed  in  a  j)Mri>k'  l)arrfd  silk,  and  she  wore 
an  immense  brass  ornament  in  her  back  hair  which  was 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  391 

much  admired.  The  "old  and  gallant  veteran  of  a  hun- 
dred fights,"  as  she  was  described  in  the  newspapers, 
Susan  B.  Anthony,  sat  near  Mrs.  or  Miss  Blake,  with  her 
hair  done  in  plain  flat  plaits,  and  she  was  attired  simply 
in  a  snuff-colored  silk  dress.  Miss  Anthony  was  the  best 
speaker,  and  during  the  evening's  entertainment  she  was 
boiling  over  with  memoranda  and  other  paragraphs.  Tlie 
Rev.  (?)  Olympia  Brown  was  quite  a  boon  to  the  audience. 
The  Rev.  Olympia,  who  received  holy  orders  from  some 
township  in  Connecticut,  was  dressed  in  a  green  check 
silk,  and  had  her  hair  done  up  in  a  very  symmetrical  knot 
and  tied  at  the  back  of  her  well-shaped  head.  Miss  Ma- 
tilda Joslyn  Gase  was  dressed  in  a  black  silk,  and  consid- 
erable excitement  was  manifested  by  the  audience  while 
she  spoke. 

The  opening  speech  of  Mr.  Luther  R.  Marsh  was  a 
gem.  If  I  had  ever  doubted  the  truth  of  the  portrait 
of  the  Hon.  Elijah  Pogram,  I  was  now  convinced  of  its 
unexaggerated  fidelity.  In  the  most  solemn  voice,  and 
in  short  broken  sentences,  with  a  distinct  pause  between 
each,  Mr.  Marsh  commenced :  "  A  new  period  has  come. 
The  ancient  clock  of  Time,  from  its  belfry  in  the  sky, 
strikes  another  hour !  The  world  has  moved  on  its  orbit 
through  another  degree!"  And  his  peroration,  spoken 
with  breathless  rapidity,  was  equally  amusing  :  "  Well 
may  the  women  of  America  come  forward  to  the  rescue 
at  this  vital  crisis  in  our  career,  and  do  what  they  can  to 
aid  the  re-election  of  General  Grant ;  for  to  his  valor,  his 
patience,  his  magnificent  generalship,  than  which  none 
brighter  shines  in  the  annals  of  war  ;  to  him,  the  most 
aggressive  of  warriors,  the  most  clement  of  victors,  whose 
combativeness  gives  place  to  magnanimity,  ere  the  sul- 
phurous clouds  of  battle  clear  away ;  to  him  who,  after 
the  surrender  under  the  apple-tree,  seemed  to  be  the  only 
man  on  whom  the  people  could  agree  to  direct  the  recon- 
structive and  recuperative  energies  of  the  nation;  to  him 
more  than  to  any  other  man  do  they  owe  the  continuance 
of  their  government,  the  return  of  their  husbands  and 
sons,  the  reign  of  order,  peace,  and  prosperity,  and  the 
unmolested  occupancy  of  their  own  homes." 


392  I'lFTY  YEARS  OF   LONDOX  LIFE. 

Mrs.  L.  D.  Blake,  who  was  quite  a  pretty  little  woman, 
raised  a  storm  of  applause  by  declaring  that  "  To-mor- 
row the  waves  of  success  would  rise  still  higher  from 
Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  until  in  November  next  around 
the  shores  of  this  Republic  would  swell  the  high  tide  of 
victory  ;"  and  Mrs.  Susan  B.  Anthony,  a  veteran  resem- 
bling Phiz's  portrait  of  Sally  Brass,  caused  immense 
amusement  by  her  description  of  an  interview  with  Mr. 
Greeley,  in  the  course  of  which  she  went  down  on  her 
knees  to  him,  without  producing  any  effect.  Finally,  we 
all  sang  the  "Star-spangled  Banner,"  and  I  went  home 
after  a  most  amusing  evening. 

My  diary  at  this  time  shows  a  round  of  delightful  en- 
tertainments. I  dined  with,  among  others,  Launt  Thomp- 
son, the  sculptor,  at  the  Century  Club;  Chief -justice 
Daly,  President  of  the  Geographical  Society ;  Judge 
Brady,  a  distinguished  wit  and  raconteur^  L.  J.  Jennings, 
at  the  Travellers'  Club  ;  W.  A.  Marston,  at  the  Union 
Club  ;  Whitelaw  Reid,  at  the  Union  League  Club  ;  J.  S. 
Morgan,  at  the  Knickerbocker;  Lester  Wallack;  Sothern 
and  Boucicault,  then  both  starring  in  New  York  ;  and 
Fechter,  whom  I  found  much  changed  for  the  worse  in 
appearance,  health,  and  manner.  I  visited  Mr.  James 
Gordon  Bennett — the  present  possessor  of  the  name,  the 
father  had  died  in  the  summer — on  board  his  yacht,  and 
saw  something  of  American  country  life  at  the  charming 
residence  of  Mr.  W.  Butler  Duncan,  on  Staten  Island. 
The  most  splendid  entertainment,  taken  all  round,  at 
which  I  have  ever  been  })resent  was  given  at  Delmon- 
ico's,  in  my  honor,  by  Judge-surrogate  Iluttliings,  where 
I  made  what  was  to  prove  the  most  valuable  friendship 
of  Mr.  Fithian  ;  while  my  esj)ecial  friends  Seaver,  llurl- 
bert,  and  Uncle  Sam  took  care  that  I  should  never  have 
a  dull  evening. 

All  this  time  I  was  working  away  at  "  I'he  Yellow 
Flag,"  which  I  finished  on  the  24tli  October,  at  the 
Christmas  Number  of  All  the  Year  Jiotmd,  and  at  "A 
JJad  Lot,"  while  engagements  for  lecturing  were  daily 
coming  into  the  Bureau.  I  lectured  on  my  reminiscences 
of  Dickens  and  Thackeray  ("Princes  of  the  Pen  ")  in  the 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  393 

Steinway  Hall,  aucl  on  "  The  British  Parliament "  before 
the  Mercantile  Library  Association.  These  lectures,  with 
"  Modern  Society  "  and  "  Good  Authors  at  a  Discount," 
I  repeated  some  half-dozen  times  in  New  York.  "  Piincea 
of  the  Pen  "  I  also  gave  at  Brooklyn,  in  the  Rev.  De  Witt 
Talmage's  "  Tabernacle "  there,  being  afterwards  most 
hospitably  entertained  at  supper  by  the  Faust  Club, 
where  I  was  welcomed,  in  a  most  kindly  speech,  by  the 
well-known  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

My  first  "  provincial "  lecture,  as  I  may  call  it,  was  de- 
livered at  New  Haven,  where  among  the  audience  was 
Donald  G.  Mitchell  —  "  Ik  Marvel "  —  whose  delightful 
book,  "  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,"  had  been  known  to  me 
for  years,  and  with  whom  I  had  a  pleasant  chat. 

My  first  visit  to  Boston  was  a  fiying  one  on  the  iVth 
October,  where  I  lectured  in  the  Music  Hall,  supped  with 
Mr.  Nathan  Appleton  at  the  Somerset  Club,  and  after 
lunching  the  uext  day  with  Mr.  Osgood  and  Mr.  Ticknor, 
the  publishers,  at  the  Union  Club,  returned  to  fulfil  en- 
gagements at  New  York.  I  made  the  Parker  House  at 
Boston  my  head-quarters  on  the  5th  of  the  next  month, 
when  I  lectured  at  Cambridgeport,  a  few  miles  off,  after 
spending  a  most  delightful  day  with  Professor  Long- 
fellow. 

Cretd  notandce  were  those  half-dozen  hours.  Longfel- 
low was  ailing  and  weak,  but  he  roused  up  in  conversa- 
tion: talked  of  his  visit  to  Gadshill,  when  Dickens  drove 
him  through  the  Kentish  country  in  an  open  carriage-and 
four,  with  post-boys  in  scarlet  jackets  ;  of  Westminster 
Abbey;  of  Niagara;  and  of  modern  English  poets,  express- 
ing warm  admiration  for  the  lyrics  of  Mortimer  Collins, 
a  copy  of  which  I  afterwards  sent  him. 

I  was  engaged  to  lecture  again  in  Boston  on  the  12th 
November,  but  on  the  10th  broke  out  the  fire  by  which  a 
large  portion  of  the  city  was  destroyed;  and  when  I  ar- 
rived, in  pursuance  of  my  engagement,  all  business  was 
at  a  standstill,  the  streets  were  in  gloom,  there  being  no 
gas,  and  everything  was  most  wretched.  Of  course  the 
lecture  was  postponed,  so  I  passed  my  evening  in  a  big 
room  at  the  Revere  House,  trying  to  read  by  candle-light, 


394  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

until  a  street-organ  outside,  playing — of  all  tunes,  at  such 
a  time,  and  under  such  circumstances  —  "Home,  Sweet 
Home,"  sent  me  to  bed  in  despair. 

On  subsequent  visits  to  Boston  I  was  entertained  by 
Mr.  James  T.  Fields,  the  well  -  known  publisher,  at  the 
Saturday  Club,  and  had  a  delightful  morning  with  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  On  the  last  occasion  of  my 
lecturing  there  I  dined  with  Dr.  Townsend,  with  whom  I 
had  crossed  in  the  Cuba.  He  accompanied  me  to  the 
Hall,  and,  on  our  entering  the  anteroom,  Ave  found  my 
faithful  Simpson,  whom  he  recognized. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Simpson,"  said  the  doctor,  "  here's  Mr. 
Yates  going  to  give  us  his  reminiscences  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray  !  In  a  few  years  we  shall  have  you  coming 
round,  giving  us  your  reminiscences  of  Yates  !" 

In  Philadelphia  I  lectui-ed  twice,  in  the  Academy  of 
Music,  to  a  very  large  audience  on  each  occasion.  It  was 
the  first  time  I  had  stood  on  an  enormous  stage,  of  which 
I  was  the  sole  occupant,  facing  an  immense  body  of  spec- 
tators ;  but  they  were  exceptionally  kind,  and  all  went  ex- 
cellently. The  "boss  of  my  show"  was  a  certain  Mr. 
Pugh,  tlie  originator  of  the  Star  Course  of  Lectures.  On 
his  handing  my  check  to  Simpson,  the  latter  took  occasion 
to  remark  that  Mr.  Yates  had  had  fine  audiences. 

"Sjjlendid  audiences,  sir  !"  said  Mr.  Pugh. 

"And  you  are  quite  satisfied,  Mr.  Pugh  ?" 

"  Quite  :  shall  be  glad  to  see  Mr.  Yates  again," 

This  ought  to  have  been  sufficient,  but  the  faithful  one 
tried  him  once  more. 

"And  you  liked  what  you  heard  of  the  lecture,  Mr. 
Pugh  ?" 

"  What  I  heard  of  it,  sir !  Why,  look  here,  young 
man,  I've  been  running  the  Star  Course  of  Lectures  for 
ten  years,  and  I've  never  heard  a  single  word  of  any  of 
them  !" 

While  at  Philadcljdiia  I  was  tlie  house -guest  of  Mr. 
Clayton  Macmichael,sun  of  Mr.  Morton  Macmichael,  whose 
acquaintance  I  had  made  in  London,  the  President  of  the 
Coiiiinittee  of  Fairmount  Park,  a  lovely  demesne,  over 
which  he  drove  me.     It  is  iiupossible  for  me  to  overrate 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  395 

the  kindness  of  this  hospitable  family.  I  was  also  most 
pleasantly  entertained  by  Mr.  Daniel  Dougherty,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Bar,  known  as  the  "silver-tongued  orator," 
and  by  a  number  of  gentlemen  at  the  Union  League 
Club. 

This  club,  numbering  at  the  time  of  my  visit  nineteen 
hundred  members,  has  a  curious  history.  In  Anthony 
Trollope's  "North  America"  there  was  a  statement  to 
the  effect  that,  while  public  political  sentiment  in  New 
York  was  divided,  in  Philadelphia  it  was  decidedly  South- 
ern. This  statement  caused  great  offence,  and  the  Union 
League  Club  was  instituted  as  a  proof  of  its  incorrect- 
ness. While  I  was  in  Philadelphia,  General  Meade,  the 
hero  of  Gettysburg,  died  amid  universal  grief.  He  was 
buried  at  Laurel  Hill  Cemetery,  and  the  funeral  was  sin- 
gularly effective,  as,  in  consequence  of  the  prevalence  of 
the  horse-disease,  the  body  was  conveyed  to  the  cemetery 
by  water,  the  funeral  procession  taking  place  on  the  river 
Schuylkill.  At  the  entrance  of  the  grounds  the  coflSn 
passed  under  an  arch,  formed  by  the  raised  crossed  swords 
of  the  cavalry. 

I  lectured  once  in  Washington,  in  Lincoln  Hall,  before 
our  Minister,  Sir  Edward  Thornton,  and  some  members 
of  the  Legation  ;  I  was  also  introduced  to  Mr.  Boutwell, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  Mr.  Robeson,  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  ;  and  Mr.  Belknap,  Secretary  of  War,  who 
were  present.  The  last -mentioned,  in  shaking  hands, 
laughingly  said  I  was  "  the  whitest  Englishman  "  he  had 
ever  seen.  I  was  told  this  was  a  compliment,  implying 
"  the  least  affected,"  but  I  am  still  doubtful  on  the  point. 
Sir  E.  Thornton  did  me  the  honor  of  asking  me  to  dinner 
the  next  day,  but  I  was  compelled  to  proceed  on  my 
travels. 

The  one  complaint  which  I  had  against  the  managers 
of  the  Bureau,  who  treated  me  throughout  in  the  most 
courteous  and  most  honorable  manner,  was  that  they  had 
not  arranged  my  lectures  with  any  reference  to  the  geo- 
graphical position  of  the  towns  to  be  lectured  in,  and 
without  any  attempt,  consequently,  to  save  me  fatigue  in 
travelling.      This  was,  perhaps,  rendered   impossible  by 


396  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

the  fact  that,  as  my  engagements  had  been  made  wholly 
on  the  strength  of  the  New  York  success,  it  was  necessary 
to  accept  every  offer  as  it  came ;  but  the  result  was  that 
I  was  always  "in  the  cars," 

It  would  be  different,  I  Avas  assured,  when  I  started  on 
my  grand  tour,  which  was  to  commence  on  the  12th  De- 
cember, and  continue  "  right  away  "  for  six  weeks,  with- 
out any  return  to  New  York  ;  but  meantime,  what  with 
constant  travel,  and  constant  work  while  travelling  —  I 
used  to  engage  a  "  state-room,"  i.e.,  a  private  compartment 
on  the  train,  and  would  be  dictating  my  novel  to  Simpson 
all  the  way — it  was  certainly  not  idleness. 

I  cannot  give  a  better  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  my 
time  was  passed  than  by  quoting  from  a  letter  which  I 
wrote  home  from  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  dated  December  8th, 
'72: 

"  Take  a  specimen  of  my  life.  I  arrived  at  the  Brevoort  at  mid-day 
Thursday,  after  lecturing  in  the  country ;  wrote  letters,  wound  up  aifairs, 
dined  and  lectured  some  eight  miles  off.  Home ;  packing  up  till  one.  Up 
again  at  six,  and  off  at  eight.  Travelled  three  hundred  miles,  arriving  here 
at  6.30.  Lectured  at  eight,  to  bed  at  ten.  Next  morning  worked  at  story 
from  nine  till  one;  dined,  started  at  2.30,  travelled  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty miles,  arriving  at  7.45;  lectured  at  eight;  started  again  at  niidniglit, 
arriving  here  at  four  this  morning;  up  at  ten,  worked  till  one,  and  have 
since  been  driving  with  one  A.  W.,  great  friend  of  Dr.  H.'s,  with  wliom  I 
dine  at  six.  No  more  '  unexceptionable  evening  dress,'  etc.  I  lecture 
now  in  a  frock-coat  and  striped  trousers  ;  and  as  I  cannot  liave  much  wash- 
ing done  on  ray  travels,  have  come  to  flannel  shirts,  and  false  collars  and 
wristbands." 

But  I  was  in  capital  spirits  and  excellent  health.  Indeed, 
with  the  excej)tion  of  one  bilious  attack,  wliich  did  not 
last  half  a  day,  I  did  not  have  an  liour's  illness  during  the 
six  months  I  was  in  America.  I  sujipose  the  ill-effects  of 
tlu!  high  living  in  New  York,  the  ^:)^a<s  of  the  lirevoort 
House,  and  the  Verzenay  and  Ileidsieck  of  Dehnonico's, 
were  counteracted  by  the  frugal  meals  which  alone  were 
obtainable  on  my  travels,  for,  in  another  letter,  I  wrote  : 

"Oh ,  enjoy  your  late  dinner,  your  claret,  and  your  comforts  with 

extra  reii.sli,  thinking  of  poor  me!  A  scrambled  dinner  at  one  o'clock, 
with  water;  'supper'  (God  help  us!)  at  six,  with  a  glass  of  milk;  and 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  397 

breakfast — there  is  luy  daily  fare.     A  glass  of  cold  brandy-and-water  and 
a  cigar  in  the  bedroom,  before  turnmg  iii,  are  my  only  creature  comforts." 

And  again: 

"  Capital  houses  and  great  success  everywhere,  but  the  life  is  sufficient- 
ly rough.  Chicago  will  be  comparative  comfort,  but  just  now  it  is  not  all 
sugar.  The  people,  meaning  it  all  most  kindly,  will  interview  and  invite 
me,  and  it  is  with  the  greatest  trouble  I  get  oil".  .  .  .  Since  writing  the  above, 
1  have  been  fetched  to  go  over  the  State  Penitentiary  {went).  Shall  be  ex- 
pected again  in  five  minutes  to  go  over  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum  {must  go). 
And  all  this  time  Pm  travelling,  and  lecturing,  and  writing  my  £500  story, 
with  which  Pm  getting  on  well.     {Have  been  to  Deaf  and  Dumb.)'''    s 

Besides  the  places  already  mentioned,  and  hefore  com- 
mencing my  "  grand  tour,"  I  lectured  at  Springfield, 
Yonkers,  Bergen  Point,  Flushing,  Danville  (Pa.),  Jersey 
City,  Rondout,  Syracuse,  Batavia,  Oswego,  and  Albany. 
On  the  12th  December  I  started  off,  my  first  hajting-place 
being  Pittsburg.  By  this  time  what  they  call  "  the  cold 
snap  "  had  arrived,  snow  had  fallen  everywhere,  and  it  was 
bitter  weather,*  Then  to  Zanesville,  Columbus,  and  De- 
troit, to  the  Lake  Michigan  country  ;  to  Ann  Arbor,  where 
I  lectured  at  the  University  to  a  splendid  and  most  appre- 
ciative audience  of  students  ;  to  Kalamazoo,  a  quaint  place 
quaintly  named ;  and  Grand  Rapids.  The  weather  had 
become  frightful,  constant  snow  -  storms,  roaring  whirl- 
wuids,  and  intense  cold.  The  audience  at  Grand  Rapids 
was  a  very  small  one.  Only  the  strongest  ventured  to 
brave  the  storm.  The  next  evening,  the  21st  December, 
I  was  due  at  Michigan  City.  My  adventures  in  attempt- 
ing to  reach  my  destination  will  be  learned  from  the  fol- 
lowing letter  : 

"St.  Joseph,  Lake  Michigan,  Monday,  Dec.  23,  '72. 
"  Our  experiences  may  be  said  to  have  begun  in  earnest !  On  Saturday 
morning  at  twelve  we  started  from  Grand  Kapids  to  make  for  Michigan 
City,  where  I  was  to  lecture  that  night.  There  had  been  very  heavy  snow, 
and  we  progressed  but  slowly,  even  with  two  engines.  At  six  in  the  even- 
ing we  ran  into  a  snow-drift,  stuck  fast,  and  there  we  had  to  remain  all 

*  Extract  from  letter :  "You  would  faint  if  you  were  to  see  my  feet  in 
the  streets,  enveloped  in  a  pair  of  over-boots,  half  cloth,  half  india-rubber ; 
but  they  are  really  necessary,  the  snow  is  so  deep  and  penetrating.  I  have 
also  my  ulster,  plaid,  and  a  splendid  pair  of  fur  gauntlets." 


398  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LU^E. 

night,  and  until  ten  o'clock  yesterday  morning,  when  we  were  fetched  away 
in  sledges  and  brought  on  here.  Oh,  that  night !  Forty  persons  :  some 
young  girls  travelling  alone,  as  American  girls  do,  the  engineers,  brakes- 
men, firemen,  etc.,  and  a  lot  of  roughs;  plenty  of  wood,  fortunately,  but 
nothing  to  eat  or  to  drink.  Except  three  apples,  I  had  nothing  from 
eight  Saturday  raoruiug  till  one  yesterday  afternoon.  But  the  people  were 
very  good-tempered  ;  and  though  there  was  more  blasphemy  than  I  ever 
heard,  there  was  nothing  else  that  was  wrong.  The  sledge  ride  of  six  miles 
was  the  worst  part  of  it.  It  was  so  intensely  cold  that  my  cheek  just  un- 
der the  eye  became  frost-bitten.  Fortunately,  a  man  noticed  it,  and  they 
stojjped  and  rubbed  my  face  with  snow.  My  fur  gauntlets  secured  my 
hands,  but  my  feet  were  quite  numb. 

"  This  is  a  mere  village ;  but  there  is,  fortunately,  good,  though  rough, 
accommodation  at  the  hotel,  for  there  is  every  chance  of  our  being  do- 
taineil  here  for  two  or  three  days  more.  The  thermometer  is  twelve  degrees 
below  zero  in  the  day,  and  worse  at  night,  and  it  has  never  ceased  blowing 
and  snowing  since  we  arrived.  The  bedroom  which  Simpson  and  I  occupy 
(double-bedded)  looks  on  to  the  Lake,  and  is  so  cold  that  the  ink  froze  in 
my  valise  !  I  am  very  well,  however,  thank  Gud !  and  should  not  mind  it 
much  but  for  the  money  loss.  Have  missed  two  engagements  equal  to 
sixty  pounds,  and  don't  know  how  many  more  I  shall  have  to  give  up. 
Sha'n't  get  the  chance  of  drinking  your  health  on  Christmas-day,  I  fear ; 
for  the  brandy  I  brought  with  me  from  N.  Y.  is  used  up  (one  bottle  burst 
with  the  cold),  and  here  one  can't  say  with  Mrs.  Prig,  '  The  drinks  is  all 
good.'  However,  it  might  be  much  worse.  Xo  chance  of  any  letters  (your 
last  was  dated  Dec.  2)  till  I  get  to  Chicago ;  and  Simpson,  who  has  just 
come  up  from  the  stove  round  which  all  sit  to  gossip,  says  they  have  given 
up  talking  of  getting  away.  So  I'll  put  this  down  for  the  present,  and  go 
on  with  my  £600  story."* 

The  conclusion  of  the  adventure  is  told  in  a  hurried  post- 
script to  the  letter: 

"Gardner  nou.«e,  Chicago,  Chrietnias-day,  4  p.m. 
"  P.S. — Arrived  here  an  hour  ago.     Yesterday  I  found  I  could  stand  it 

*  There  is  always  a  newspaper  reporter  everywhere  in  America,  and 
there  was  one,  it  seems,  in  this  train.  He  sent  a  most  humorous  account 
of  our  adventure,  which  appeared  in  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean.  It  is  too 
long  to  (juote;  but  one  bit  about  myself  is  so  funny  that  I  must  reproduce 
it: 

"EDMUND  YATES. 

"  About  this  time,  if  any  one  had  ]>assed  through  the  coach,  he  might 
have  seen  a  tremendous  pair  of  feet,  and  had  his  eyes  been  awake  enough 
to  follow  »ip  three  feet  to  the  founlain-hoad,  lie  could  have  seen  a  frame 
which  was  fitted  out  exactly  for  the  above-mentioned  feet.  '  He  weighs 
well  on  to  four  hundred  pounds,  and  has  got  on  nine  over-coats,'  said  a 
traveller.  A  closer  ins|)ection  showed  this  to  Ije  Edmund  Yates,  the  Eng- 
lish novelist  and  lecturer." 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND   STRIPES.  399 

no  longer ;  and  so,  as  the  railroad  is  still  blocked,  I  startocl  off  on  a  sleigh 
for  a  twenty-five  miles'  drive  across  country.  Thermometer  elf/htecn  de- 
grees below  zero.  Such  a  make  -  up  !  Ulster,  snow-boots,  fur  gauntlets, 
shooting-gaiters,  immense  comforter  round  nose  and  mouth,  and  over  all — 
head  and  face  with  only  one  peep-hole — my  Scotch  plaid,  like  the  veil  of 
the  Mokanna.  Bore  it  very  well ;  and  when  I  dared  to  peep  forth  the 
country  looked  lovely.  Dashed  through  drifts  over  the  horses'  shoulders, 
bells  going  all  the  time  :  thought  perpetually  of  Irving." 

The  comforts  of  Gardner  House  were  doubly  enjoyable 
after  my  privations,  and  I  remained  there  two  or  three 
days.  Among  my  fellow-guests  I  found  an  old  acquaint- 
ance, Miss  Charlotte  Cushman,  whom  I  had  not  seen  since, 
eighteen  years  before,  she  sang — or  rather  solemnly  and 
weirdly  chanted — Kingsley's  ballad,  "  Mary,  call  the  cattle 
home,"  in  Mrs.  Smedley's  Jermyn  Street  drawing-room. 
We  had  much  pleasant  talk,  and  I  went  to  McVicker's 
theatre  to  see  her  wonderful  impersonation  of  Meg  Mer- 
rilies.  Another  guest  was  Forster,  the  spiritualist  medi- 
um, who  tried  all  his  "  hanky-panky  "  on  me,  without  the 
smallest  success.  He  said  he  had  never  felt  so  nervous 
before,  and  ascribed  his  failure  to  "my  well-known  in- 
credulity," and  the  reputation  I  had  "  of  guying  and 
burlesquing"  such  matters.  The  last  night  of  '72  was 
passed  by  me  at  a  small  place  called  Muskegon. 

There  is  no  need  to  describe  in  detail  my  wanderings 
and  lecturings  for  the  next  two  months,  visits  to  strange 
places  with  strange  names  —  East  Saginaw,  Fredonia, 
Titusville,  Aurora,  Watertown,  etc.  Providence  (Rhode 
Island)  and  Portland  (Maine)  are  more  familiar  to  Eng- 
lish ears.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  I  spent  two  days,  Sat- 
urday, 8th,  and  Sunday,  9th  February,  at  Niagara,  look- 
ing, with  her  crystallized  surroundings,  most  loving  in 
her  ice-robes ;  and  that  my  last  lectures  "  on  the  other 
side"  were  delivered  on  the  14th  and  loth  of  the  same 
mouth,  at  Montreal,  where  I  had  splendid  audiences,  a 
vote  of  thanks  to  me  being  proposed  by  Mr.  Hunting- 
ton, the  Premier,  and  a  splendid  supper  given  me  by  the 
Snow  Shoe  Club. 

Then  and  there  ended  my  Transatlantic  lecture  tour, 
having  lasted,  off   and  on,  for  more  than  five  months. 


400  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

Between  leaving  London  at  the  end  of  August,  18*72,  and 
returning  there  in  March,  1873, 1  travelled  26,000  miles, 
and  delivered  one  hundred  and  six  lectures,  finished  "  The 
Yellow  Flag,"  wrote  the  framework  of  All  the  Year  Hound 
Christmas  Number,  and  the  whole  of  "A  Bad  Lot,"  be- 
sides sending  two  or  three  occasional  articles  to  the  Daily 
JVeios. 

As  a  lecturer,  I  was  treated  by  my  audiences,  my  man- 
agers (the  Bureau),  and  the  press  with  invariable  cour- 
tesy and  respect ;  by  the  press,  indeed,  with  special  ap- 
preciation, leniency,  and  esprit  de  corps.  As  a  visitor,  I 
was  received  everywhere  with  the  most  pressing  hospi- 
tality, made  free  of  clubs,  invited  on  my  tour  to  stay  at 
})rivate  houses,  all  kinds  of  stringent  rules  relaxed  in  my 
favor,  nothing  reckoned  as  a  trouble  which  would  do  mc 
service.  That  in  every  town  I  was  popular  among  those 
whose  acquaintance  I  made,  I  have  every  reason  to  hope. 
That  I  was  successful  among  my  audiences  is  certain. 
On  the  20th  January,  Mr.  Brelsford,  the  manager  of  the 
Bureau,  called  on  me  at  the  Brevoort  House  "to  talk 
about  the  future."  He  expressed  a  strong  desire  that  I 
should  come  out  to  America,  under  their  auspices,  the 
next  season;  he  was  prepared,  he  said,  to  make  me  a  dis- 
tinct offer,  and  for  my  services,  from  the  31st  October, 
'73,  till  the  30th  January,  '74,  he  Avould  guarantee  to  pay 
me  a  sum  of  12,000  dollars,  or  £2400. 

This  offer  was  generous,  plucky,  and  tempting.  But  I 
did  not  accept  it  at  once  ;  I  requested  time  for  consider- 
ation; I  had  another  affair  on  hand. 

The  truth  was  that,  ungrateful  though  it  may  seem,  I 
had  always  hated  what  Dickens  called  "the  garish  lights" 
of  the  ])latform  ;  and  though  use  had  made  them  per- 
fectly familiar  to  me,  and  though  they  had  served  my 
])urpose  far  more  effe(^lually  than  I  had  ever  ex})ected,  I 
was  anxious  to  get  back  to  my  own  calling,  and  to  earn 
my  living  quietly,  and  without  the  necessity  for  public 
appearances. 

^Vitll  this  idea  always  in  my  mind,  I  liad  proposc^d  to 
Mr.  James  C4ordon  Bennett,  soon  after  my  arrival  in 
America,  that  on  my  return  liome  he  should  a})})oint  me 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  401 

as  the  London  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald, 
with  an  adequate  salary.  I  gave  him  my  ideas  of  what 
I  would  do  in  the  position,  which  seemed  to  please  him, 
but  he  could  make  me  no  final  answer,  as  he  was  about 
sailing  for  Europe.  Since  then  I  had  written  to  him  fre- 
quently, but  Avithout  obtaining  any  conclusive  or  satis- 
factory reply ;  for  Mr.  Bennett,  though  one  of  the  most 
charming  of  men,  possesses  beyond  any  other  mortal  the 
power,  when  it  suits  him,  of  keeping  people  waiting.  He 
had  himself  supplemented  my  original  idea  by  suggesting 
that  I  should  not  merely  be  his  London  correspondent, 
but  his  principal  representative  in  Europe,  travelling  here 
and  there,  as  occasion  demanded;  and  to  this  I  consented. 
Just  then,  when  I  was  on  the  point  of  agreeing  to  Mr. 
Brelsford's  suggestion  that  he  should  accept  some  propo- 
sals from  Salt  Lake  City,  San  Francisco,  etc.,  for  the 
month  of  March,  I  received  a  cable  message  from  Mr. 
Bennett,  engaging  me  at  a  salary  of  £1200  a  year,  and 
bidding  me  return  at  once,  as  he  wished  me  to  represent 
him  at  the  Vienna  Exhibition,  which  opened  on  the  1st  of 
May,  but  which  would  require  attention  long  before  that. 

Here,  then,  I  thought,  was  the  full  measure  of  my  luck, 
for  had  I  not  gained  what  I  had  striven  for  so  hard  ?  I 
returned  to  New  York  straight  from  Montreal,  intending 
to  go  home  in  the  first  convenient  steamer.  But  on  my 
arrival  at  the  Brevoort  House,  I  found  a  letter  awaiting  me 
from  Mr.  Connery,  then  editor  of  the  Herald,  begging  me 
to  call  there  at  once.  Was  Mr.  Bennett  going  to  throw 
me  over?  I  fairly  trembled  as  the  thought  crossed  my 
mind,  for  I  had  cabled  the  good  news  home  as  soon  as  I 
heard  it. 

My  fears  were,  however,  speedily  allayed.  Mr.  Ben- 
nett had  merely  telegraphed  his  wishes  that  I  should 
attend  the  ceremonial  at  Washington  consequent  upon 
General  Grant's  inauguration  as  President  for  a  second 
term,  that  I  should  describe  them  fully  in  the  Herald,  and 
then  come  to  Europe  as  quickly  as  possible.  I  could  now 
settle  the  exact  date  of  my  departure,  and,  the  inaugura- 
tion taking  place  on  the  4th  March,  I  secured  a  cabin  in 
the  Cunarder  Calabria,  which  sailed  on  the  12th. 


402  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

I  was  a  little  nervous  about  the  work  I  was  called  on' 
to  do  at  Washington,  partly  because  it  was  to  be  per- 
formed on  what  were  then  to  me  entirely  new  conditions 
— that  is  to  say,  it  was  to  be  despatched  at  once  over  tlie 
wire  to  New  York,  to  appear  in  the  next  morning's 
Herald;  but  more  especially  as  I  had  an  idea  that  Mr. 
Bennett  might  have  cleverly  proposed  it  as  a  kind  of 
test  of  my  fitness  for  the  position  which  I  was  to  hold 
under  him. 

But  it  had  to  be  done,  and  it  was  done.  I  went  to 
Washington,  and  remained  there  four  days.  I  Avas  pre- 
sented to  the  President,  and  had  long  chats  Avith  General 
Sherman  and  General  "  Phil "  Sheridan,  both  of  whom 
were  most  courteous  and  kind.  I  was  the  house-guest 
of  Franklin  Philp,  and  I  dined  each  night  at  "  Welcker's" 
with  Uncle  Sam.  I  worked  in  the  day  like  a  horse,  going 
everywhere,  noting  everything;  and  on  the  night  before 
the  ceremony,  and  on  the  evening  of  Inauguration  Day,  I 
dictated  to  Simpson  what  proved  to  be  equivalent  to  four 
small-printed  columns  of  the  Herald,  descriptive  of  what 
I  had  seen,  and  comment  on  the  ceremony. 

I  tliink  that  tlie  manner  in  wliich  1  executed  this  test- 
task  did  me  good.  My  friends  were  enthusiastic  about  it ; 
it  was  generally  copied  and  commented  on,  and  chaffed, 
throughout  the  ])ress,  but  always  in  a  friendly  strain  ; 
and,  best  of  all,  the  tlien  astute  editor  of  the  Herald,  not 
a  man  given  to  violent  enu)tion  or  warmth  of  ex])ression, 
"thought  it  would  please  Mr.  BcJinett."  So  I  could  enter 
on  my  new  duties  with  a  light  heart. 

There  was  much  yet  to  be  done.  Before  leaving 
Washington,  I  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  very  high  house, 
to  shake  hands  with  glorious  old  Walt  Whitman,  (hen 
ill  and  intirni,  but  hearty  in  manner  and  most  interesting; 
and  at  New  York  I  went  to  the  great  prison,  The  Tombs, 
to  take  farewell  of  my  old  acquaintance  (ieorge  Francis 
'i'rain,  who  was  incarcerated  for  some  eccentric  outbreak. 

On  Saturday,  the  Hth,  my  good  friends  of  the  Lotos 
(  luh  enlerlained  nu;  at  a  farewell  dinner,  over  which 
Whilelaw  Keid  presided,  while  among  tlie  convives  were 
Bret    Ilarte,   Kdniund   C.  Stedman,   Colonel   John    Hay, 


UNDER  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES.  403 

"  Pelroleum  V.  Nasby,"  and  Henry  M.  Stanley,  fresh 
from  Africa.  In  kindliest  terms,  the  president  proposed 
my  health,  saying,  that  the  departure  of  the  English 
stranger  whom  they  had  received  a  few  months  ago  was 
felt  by  every  member  of  the  club  as  the  loss  of  a  per- 
sonal friend. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Charles  Delmonico,  one  of  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  famous  restaurant,  gave  a  dejeuner  in  my 
honor,  present  at  which,  in  addition  to  those  above  named, 
were  Judge  Brady,  Dion  Boucicault,  Surrogate  Hutch- 
ings,  Major  Bundy,  and  John  Brougham. 

There  were  yet  two  more  farewell  dinners  to  be  eaten, 
one  at  the  Union  League  Club,  given  by  Mr.  Scribner, 
another  at  the  Manhattan  Club,  given  by  Uncle  Sam ; 
and  on  Wednesday  afternoon,  the  12th  March,  exactly  six 
months  after  my  arrival,  my  friends  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fithian, 
Mr.  W.  A.  Seaver,  Mrs.  Boucicault,  Mr.  W.  H.  Marston, 
Mr.  D.  Bixby,  one  of  the  directors  of  the  Lotos  Club,  my 
manager,  Mr.  Brelsford,  and  Miss  Edgarton,  one  of  the 
most  charming  and  most  popular  of  lady  lecturers,  ac- 
companied me  to  the  Cunard  wharf,  and  waved  their 
farewells  as  the  Calabria  steamed  slowly  off,  homeward 
bound. 

So  ended  my  six  months  in  America  —  the  most  im- 
portant period  in  my  life.  Six  months  of  tolerably  hard 
work,  indeed — far  harder  than  I  should  now  be  capable 
of  getting  through — but  hard  work  lightened  by  bound- 
less hospitality,  constant  courtesy,  the  most  delicate  yet 
genial  appreciation.  During  the  Avhole  of  my  visit  I 
never  had  an  unpleasant  word  from  any  one,  I  made  no 
enemies,  and  even  "candid  friends"  were  good  enough 
to  spare  me.* 

*  Much  is  said  of  the  inquisitiveness  of  the  Americans  and  of  their  con- 
stant question-asking.  I  only  recollect  once  being  asked  a  question.  It 
was  at  Pittsburg,  where  I  had  lectured  on  "Princes  of  the  Pen."  The 
next  morning  at  breakfast  I  was  reading  the  criticisms  on  mvself,  when, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  newspaper,  came  a  finger-fillip  which  made  me 
start.  Looking  up,  I  found  a  siiarp-faccd  man  close  upon  me.  "  What 
did  Thackeray  die  of  ?"  said  he,  abruptly  ;  "  that's  what  I  want  to  know ; 
you  didn't  tell  us  that  last  night." 


404  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

I  went  a  stranger;  I  returned  leaving  troops  of  friends. 
I  went  with  a  lean  purse  and  vague  prospects  ;  I  returned 
with  £1600  and  an  appointment  worth  £1200  a  year.  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  I  should  regard  with  affection  and 
gratitude  a  land  where  I  had  such  an  emphatically  "  good 
time,"  and  from  which  I  received  such  substantial  bene- 
fit? 


IN   THE   'HERALD'S"   TAJ3AKD.  405 


CHAPTER  XV. 

IN  THE   "  herald's  "  TABAKD. 

18V3-1875. 

The  homeward  voyage  in  the  Calabria  was  cold  and 
cheerless,  without  incident,  save  that  we  lost  a  man  over- 
board in  a  storm,  and  without  amusement,  save  that  con- 
tained in  the  remark  of  a  young  American  gentleman, 
who  having,  after  the  usual  fashion  on  the  last  night  of 
the  passage,  joined  in  "  Auld  Lang  Syne  "  and  the  usual 
hand-shakincTs  and  vagaries  there  anent  with  the  rest  of 
the  passengers,  informed  me  that  he  wished  to  Heaven 
he  should  never  see  any  of  them  again. 

I  reached  my  home  on  the  23d  March,  and  after  forty- 
eight  hours'  rest,  started  off  with  Dr.  Hosmer,  the  Lon- 
don agent  of  the  Herald,  to  see  Mr.  Bennett,  who  was 
in  Paris.  The  next  day  I  had  a  long  intervicAV  with 
my  new  employer,  and  settled  all  preliminaries.  My  en- 
gagement was  for  a  year  certain,  and  my  first  duty  was 
to  give  a  full  account  of  the  Vienna  Exhibition.  Mr. 
Bennett  understood  that  I  should  like  some  little  time  at 
home  after  so  long  an  absence,  but  he  wished  me  to  be  in 
Vienna  in  time  to  send  some  preparatory  letters  descrip- 
tive of  the  progress  of  the  works,  the  scenes  in  the  city, 
the  arrivals,  etc.  Then  I  took  my  leave  and  returned 
home. 

I  had  plenty  to  do  during  the  next  fortnight  in  looking 
up  and  settling  affairs  which  had  necessarily  fallen  into 
arrear  during  my  absence,  in  calling  on  and  receiving 
friends,  and  in  making  arrangements  for  my  new  duties. 
I  found  in  Dr.  Hosmer,  whom  I  made  it  my  business  to 
see  every  day,  a  shrewd,  long-headed,  and  kindly  man, 
who  took  considerable  trouble  with  me,  explaining  to  niu 


406  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

what  Mr.  Bennett  had  in  his  mind  should  be  done  in  Vi- 
enna, and,  what  was  of  far  more  consequence,  giving  me 
much  useful  advice  in  regard  to  the  peculiarities  of  those 
with  whom  I  was  likely  to  be  thrown  into  contact,  and 
the  manner  in  which  I  could  most  easily  render  myself 
agreeable. 

It  seemed  that  Mr,  Bennett  had  determined  to  seize 
upon  the  opening  of  the  Vienna  Exhibition  for  making 
a  great  cok}^  with  the  Herald.  I  was  not  to  be,  as  I  had 
imagined,  the  only  representative  of  that  journal  at  Vien- 
na: I  was  to  be  associated  with  Mr.  John  Russell  Young, 
an  American  journalist  of  approved  mettle,  a  gentleman 
long  connected  with  the  Herald,  and  possessing  Mr.  Ben- 
nett's confidence  in  a  remarkable  degree;  while  the  Ger- 
man readers  of  the  paper  resident  in  New  York — a  very 
large  clientUe — were  to  be  propitiated  by  having  full  ac- 
counts of  the  opening  ceremony  written  for  them  in  tlieir 
own  language  by  Berthold  Auerbach,  the  well-known 
author  of  "Village  Tales,"  and  Madame  Muhlbach,  also 
a  famous  contemporary  writer. 

More  than  this,  in  order  to  eclipse  all  his  rivals  and 
render  competition  impossible,  the  proprietor  of  the  Her- 
ald liad  been  for  some  time  engaged  upon  arrangements 
for  securing  the  transmission  of  the  whole  of  the  articles 
of  the  four  correspondents — two  in  English  and  two  in 
German — by  telegraph,  and  cable  to  New  York,  so  that 
the  description  of  the  various  scciu's  would  api)oar  in  the 
next  number  of  the  journal,  and  be  read  at  the  break  fust- 
tables  of  his  constituency  on  the  morning  after  the  oc- 
currence. 

This  really  extraordinary  feat  Avould,  if  properly  car- 
ried out,  entirely  distance  any  attempt  made  by  the  other 
New  York  journals — wliicli,  however.  Dr.  IIosnuT  had 
learned,  were  going  to  make  their  own  attem))ts  to  dis- 
tinguish themselves.  Thus  the  Keio  York  IHhune  ha<l 
engaged  the  services  of  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor,  the  eminent 
traveller,  of  whom  the  great  ITiiniboldt  said  he  h.-id 
"nev(!r  met  with  a  man  who  had  travelled  so  much  and 
seen  so  little."  The  New  York  Tiviea  would  have  as  its 
representative  the  renowned  Dr.  W.  II.  Russell,  first  H])e- 


IN  THE  "HERALD'S"  TABARD.  407 

cial  correspondent  of  its  London  namesake  ;  while  Colo- 
nel Evelyn,  a  cultivated  Southern  gentleman  of  expe- 
rience and  address,  was  going  out  for  the  Neio  York 
World.  These  were  the  rivals  against  whom  we,  the 
Herald  phalanx,  should  be  pitted,  and  it  was,  above  all, 
necessary  that  the  utmost  secrecy  should  be  observed  as 
regarded  our  intended  proceedings. 

Coming  down  to  the  Dally  JVews  office,  I  learned  from 
my  old  and  valued  friend  Mr.  J.  R,  Robinson  that,  in 
their  interest,  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes  had  already  started 
for  Vienna,  and  that  they  would  be  happy  to  accept  any 
contributions  I  might  send  them  as  suj^plementary  to 
those  of  the  renowned  soldier-scribe,  with  whom,  on  my 
arrival,  I  should  put  myself  in  communication.  This 
were  best  done,  Mr.  Robinson  suggested,  by  my  sharing, 
if  we  were  both  willing,  the  lodgings  which  had  already 
been  taken  for  Mr.  Forbes  by  the  Daily  A'^eu's  Vienna  cor- 
respondent, and  where  he  understood  the  accommodation 
was  amjjle. 

Heretofore  my  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes 
had  been  slight,  but  I  acted  upon  Mr.  Robinson's  sugges- 
tion, and  I  have  to  thank  him,  in  addition  to  many  other 
benefits,  for  bringing  about  a  friendship  which  is  to  me 
most  valuable  and  most  cherished. 

On  the  15th  April  I  left  London  for  Paris,  where  I  was 
detained  for  a  week  by  Mr.  Bennett,  receiving  his  instruc- 
tions, going  to  him  daily  for  more  last  words,  holding 
long  consultations  with  Mr.  Saner,  an  attache  of  the  Her- 
ald, who  was  to  have  charge  of  despatching  our  telegraph 
articles,  oft  "  fitting  the  halter,"  oft  "  traversing  the  cart;" 
until  at  last,  on  Monday,  the  21st,  I  managed  to  get  clear, 
and  fairly  started  for  Vienna.  Travelling  direct  via 
Munich  and  Salzburg,  I  arrived  in  the  empire  city  at  9.. 30 
on  the  evening  of  the  second  day,  and  drove  to  17  Hegel- 
gasse,  where  I  found  Forbes  Avaiting  to  receive  me. 

The  accommodation  which  Mr.  Robinson's  Vienna  rep- 
resentative had  engaged  for  us  was  "  ample,"  indeed,  so 
far  as  space  was  concerned.  There  were  two  large  rooms, 
but  they  were  at  the  top  of  the  house  ;  they  were  poorly 
furnished,  and  devoid  of  anything  like  comfort ;  but  the 


408  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

experience  of  a  lifetime  had  enabled  Forbes  to  laugh  at 
crumpled  rose  -  leaves,  and,  after  snow  -  storms  and  short- 
commons  on  Lake  Michigan,  the  deficiencies  of  the  Hegel- 
gasse  were  not  much  trouble  to  me.  My  new-found  com- 
rade and  I  soon  found  that,  essentially  different  in  many 
respects,  we  were  excellently  suited  to  each  other ;  our 
sky-parlor  was  useful  enough  for  working  and  sleejnng 
in,  and  there  were  plenty  of  places  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  in  which  we  could  find  fun  and  amuse- 
ment. 

We  were  a  very  happy  English  and  American  colony 
of  Government  officials,  exhibitors,  and  journalists,  all 
working  hard  in  utmost  harmony  together  during  the 
day,  most  of  us  generally  dining  and  passing  the  evening 
in  company.  There  were  Mr.  (now  Sir)  Philip  Cunliffe 
Owen,  then,  as  ever,  most  heljjful  and  courteous  to  all 
l)rouglit  in  connection  with  him  ;  Mr.  (now  Sir)  W.  Rob- 
inson, present  Governor  of  the  Windward  Islands,  then 
Special  Commissioner  for  the  Colonies  at  the  Exhibition  ; 
Mr.  Trendell,  Mr.  Ryall,  Colonel  Michael,  and  Lieut. 
Anstey — all  more  or  less  representing  South  Kensington  ; 
and  Mr.  Clark,  Mr.  F.  Barwell  the  artist,  who  came  out 
to  sujjcrintend  the  hanging  of  the  British  collection  of 
pictures  ;  Dr.  Ruppcner,  a  German  physician  from  New 
York  ;  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor ;  my  colleague  Mr.  John  Rus- 
sell Young,  with  whom  I  formed  an  intimate  alliance,  and 
who  is  now  American  Minister  in  China  ;  my  old  friend 
ISIr.  W.  Beatty-Kingston  of  the  Daily  Tdegniph,  as  viva- 
cious as  when  I  first  knew  him  in  his  boyhood  ;  Mr. 
Forbes,  and  myself.  After  our  long  day's  tramping  over 
the  growing  Exhibition,  to  which  I  found  a  most  excellent 
cicerone  in  Mr.  Scott  Russell,  and  after  tlie  despatching 
of  our  letters,  we  wouhl  dine,  a  large  i)arty,  at  the  Hotel 
Taubc  or  the  Hotel  M6tropolc,  and  give  ourselves  up  to 
enjoyment. 

On  the  28th  April  the  Concordia,  the  j)ress  club  of 
Vienna,  entertained  their  fellow-ln'cthren  and  visitors  at 
what  was  really  a  niagniliccnt  bancpiet,  and  I  had  the 
honor  of  replying  in  (4ernian  to  the  toast  of  the  visitors. 
Mr.  Beatty-Kingston,  who  is  more  polyglotic  than  a  Brad- 


IN  THE   "HERALD'S"   TABARD.  409 

shaw's  washing-book,  also  replied  in  excellent  German  to 
a  toast,  and  we  were  told  that  we  had  covered  ourselves 
with  glory. 

On  the  30th  I  had  the  honor  of  being  presented  to 
H.  R.  H.  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  received  me  with  his 
usual  affability,  which  stood  him  in  good  stead  on  over- 
hearing a  wild  Scotchman,  correspondent  of  a  Northern 
journal,  Math  a  pocket  full  of  papers,  ask  Mr.  Forbes, 
whom  he  did  not  know,  to  "  prasant  him  to  the  Prance." 

On  the  morning  of  the  1st  May  we  were  all  up  be- 
times, hastening  to  the  places  we  had  previously  selected 
as  the  best  for  observation  purposes,  Forbes  and  I  took 
up  our  posts  in  the  gallery  of  the  rotunda,  where  we  ob- 
served the  entire  ceremonial,  hurrying  afterwards  to  vari- 
ous points  which  the  special  acumen  of  my  companion 
led  me  to  believe  would  repay  a  visit.  Material  complete, 
I  left  Forbes  and  hurried  off  to  the  rooms  occupied  by 
Mr.  Sauer  in  the  Hotel  Weisses  Ross,  where  I  found  Mr. 
John  Russell  Young  already  at  work. 

My  share  of  the  united  despatch  was  two  thousand  two 
hundred  words.  All  the  four  articles  went  safely  through 
the  cable,  and  were  published  the  next  morning,  as  Mr. 
Bennett  had  determined.  The  success  in  New  York  was 
tremendous,  but  not  greater  than  the  surprise  in  Vienna, 
when,  our  messages  being  safely  despatched  and  their  re- 
ceipt acknowledged,  we  told  what  we  had  done.  Then 
we  found  that  the  other  New  York  journals  had  secretly 
carried  out  some  novel  plans,  but  nothing  commensurate 
with  ours,  for  expediting  their  correspondence.  Thus  the 
letter  of  Mr,  Bayard  Taylor  to  the  New  York  Tribune  was 
telegraphed  to  London,  there  to  be  written  out  and  de- 
spatched by  the  mail  leaving  Liverpool  that  day,  the  let- 
ter of  Dr.  Russell  to  the  New  York  Times  was  to  be  sent 
by  special  courier  to  London ;  but  the  extraordinary  feat 
performed  in  the  interests  of  the  Herald  rendered  these 
measures  useless,  for  the  description  of  the  opening  of  the 
Vienna  Exhibition,  read  in  New  York  the  next  morning, 
had  become  stale  news  and  been  forgotten  long  before 
the  other  descriptions  arrived. 

In  honor  of  our  exploit,  Mr.  Russell  Young  and  Mr. 

18 


410  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

Sauer  entertained  Madame  Miililbach,*  her  sister  and 
daughter,  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor,  Mr.  Forbes,  Mr.  Wash- 
burne,  son  of  the  American  Minister  in  Paris,  and  my- 
self, at  a  very  pleasant  dinner  at  the  Weisses  Ross  the 
next  day.  The  Times  was  represented  at  the  Vienna  Ex- 
hibition by  Mr.  Alexander  Innes  Shand,  a  gentleman  who 
has  written  one  or  two  clever  novels.  He  was  not  much 
with  us,  nor  did  I  see  anything  scarcely  of  Dr.  Russell 
until  passing  the  Exhibition  on  Thursday,  the  8th  May, 
when  there  had  been  some  special  British  function,  which 
I  had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  attend,  I  heard  the 
drums  roll,  saw  the  sentries  present  arms,  and,  looking 
round  expectant  of  a  generalissimo,  I  saw  issue  from  the 
doors  my  old  acquaintance  Dr.  Russell,  scarlet  -  coated, 
cocked-hatted,  waving-plumed,  in  the  full  uniform  of  a 
British  deputy-lieutenant. 

As  we  learned  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  going  to 
Buda-Pesth,  Forbes  and  I  thought  it  advisable  to  precede 
him,  and  started  off  thither  on  the  9th  May,  on  board  one 
of  the  splendid  Danube  boats,  putting  up  at  the  Hotel 
Hungaria.  We  remained  at  Buda-Pesth  some  days,  went 
to  Margaretten  Island,  attended  the  regatta  and  the  races, 
at  both  of  which  the  Prince  was  present,  and  had  a  gener- 
ally good  time.  I  note  as  an  incident  that  Prince  Arthur, 
now  Duke  of  Connaught,  passing  through  the  room  where 
we  were  at  breakfast,  spoke  to  Forbes  and  told  him  ho 
had  been  out  since  7  a.m.  watching  the  evolutions  of  some 
Hungarian  cavalry.  iSic  itur  ad  Field-marshalship.  On 
the  14th  I  took  leave  of  my  comrade,  who  was  going  to 
remain  to  write  up  certain  details  of  the  contents  of  the 
Exlii])ition,  and  returned  home. 

Within  forty -eight  hours  of  my  arrival  I  was  tele- 
graphed to  go  to  Paris,  as  a  crisis  in  political  affairs  was 
expected.  It  came  almost  immediately.  I  attended  Ver- 
sailles every  day,  and  was  in  the  press-gallery  of  the  Cham- 
ber during  the  three  seances  on  the  24th  May,  at  the  end 
of  which  M.  Thiers  was  overthrown,  and  Marshal  MacMa- 

*  Miidamc  Mtililhach,  wliosc  rc.il  name  was  Madame  Clara  Miiiidt,  died 
llie  following  September. 


IN  THE   "HERALD'S"   TABARD.  411 

hou  elected  in  his  place.  During  that  night,  and  nearly 
the  whole  of  the  next  day,  I  was  engaged  in  telegraphing 
to  America  a  descrij^tion  of  the  scenes  I  had  witnessed. 

I  next  donned  the  IIerald''s  tabard  on  the  16th  June, 
starting  off  with  Mr.  Forbes  to  Brussels,  to  meet  the  Shah 
of  Persia,  who  was  coming  on  a  visit  to  England  via  Os- 
tend.  We  put  up  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Europe,  where  we 
found  several  of  our  journalistic  confreres.  On  the  18th 
we  were  up  at  3.30  a.m.,  and  started  at  five  o'clock  for  Os- 
tend  in  the  special  train  provided  for  his  Persian  majes- 
ty. Passage  from  Ostend  to  Dover  was  provided  for  the 
newspaper  correspondents  in  II.  M.  S.  Lively,  where  we 
wei*e  most  graciously  received  and  excellently  entertained 
at  luncheon  by  the  ofBcers.  A  comic  scene  occurred  just 
before  leaving  Ostend.  We  were  about  to  cast  off  from 
the  pier,  when  suddenly  there  appeared,  bearing  an  odd- 
looking  bag,  and  looking  a  little  seedy  with  early  rising, 
a  gentleman  in  whom  we  recognized  Mark  Twain,  but  for 
whom  the  stolid  sailor  at  the  gangway  had  no  recognition. 

"  I  am  coming  on  board,"  said  Twain,  persuasively. 

"  No,  you  ain't,"  said  the  stalwart  A.  B. — "  no  tramps 
here." 

"  What's  that  you  say  ?"  asked  Twain. 

"  No  tramps  here,"  repeated  the  sailor. 

"  Well,  now,"  said  Twain,  in  his  softest  and  longest 
drawl,  "  you  are  quite  right,  I  am  a  '  tramp '  —  I  am  the 
'  Tramp  Abroad ;' "  and  then  we  welcomed  him  with  a 
shout. 

We  had  a  splendid  passage,  and  I  can  scarcely  recollect 
a  finer  sight  than  the  eight  ironclads,  draAvn  up  in  mid- 
Channel,  which  saluted  us  as  we  passed  between  them. 

Days  and  nights  were  now  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of 
the  Persian  potentate,  whom  I  followed  everywhere,  duly 
recording  his  doings.*    After  him  I  went  to  an  inspection 


*  A  great  likeness  was  said  to  exist  between  us.  Mark  Twain  had 
written  to  Russell  Young  from  Brussels :  "  They  are  selling  portraits  of 
Yates  here  at  two  francs  apiece,  and  calling  him  the  Shah.  What  does  it 
mean  ?" 


412  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

at  Hyde  Park ;  to  the  Floral  Hall  and  the  stage  of  the 
Italian  Opera,  to  see  him  entertained  in  state  in  his 
box ;  to  the  naval  review  at  Portsmouth,  where,  on  board 
H.  M.  S.  Glatton,  I  nearly  had  my  ears  burst  by  the  thun- 
der of  her  guns  ;  and  to  entertainments  without  number, 
until  I  hated  the  Persian  apparatus  worse  even  than  in 
my  school-days. 

On  the  4th  July  I  was  off  to  Paris,  where  the  Shah  was 
expected.  On  the  6th,  from  a  window  of  Madame  de 
Casseris's  splendid  mansion,  the  first  on  the  left  in  the 
Champs -Ely  sees  as  you  enter  Paris,  directly  facing  the 
Arc  de  Triomphe,  I  witnessed  the  Shah's  entry  amid  a 
good  deal  of  ill-concealed  ribaldry.  "Avez  vous  vu  le 
Shah?"  was  the  cry  of  the  hour,  which  in  three  days  was 
invariably  met  with  the  reply,  "Assez  du  Shah!"  No 
doubt  I  saw  enough  of  him.  I  went  with  his  suite  to 
Versailles  on  one  of  the  hottest  days  I  can  remember, 
doing  it  all — processions,  dejeuners,  grandes  eaux,  down  to 
the  fireworks  at  night.  I  grilled  on  the  grand  stand  at 
Longchamps,  looking  at  the  military  review  in  his  honor; 
and  on  Saturday,  the  12th,  I  went  to  a  special  representation 
at  the  old  opera-house  in  the  Rue  Lepclletier,  having  to 
pay,  and  paying,  at  the  desire  of  my  proprietor,  £16  for 
the  stall,  in  order  that  the  Herald  might  be  represented 
at  the  grand  gala;  races  at  Autcuil,  and  a  fine  fete  of  fire- 
works at  the  Trocadero,  the  whole  extent  of  the  Cliamps- 
Elysees,  from  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  to  the  obelisk,  be- 
ing hung  with  various-colored  lamps — a  most  lovely  spec- 
tacle— terminated  my  attendance  on  the  Shah. 

A  visit  to  Malvern,  to  draw  a  comparison  between  it 
and  certain  American  hcaltli-resorts,  and  to  Cowes  during 
the  regatta  week,  Avcre  my  next  performances;  and  hear- 
ing that  tlio  diHtril)ution  of  pri/cs  was  to  take  place  at 
Vienna  on  the  18th  August,  I  started  lliitlior  early  in  tlio 
month,  accompanied  by  my  wife.  Tlio  heat  was  terrific, 
and  wo  were  not  pressed  for  time,  so  we  journeyed  lei- 
surely, stopping  at  Spa,  at  Wurzburg,  at  Munich,  and  at 
Salzburg,  settling  down  in  Viemia  at  tlie  lIAtel  Austria 
— not  the  Osterreichischerliof,  Init    a    uKit^niiflcent  ])alace. 


IN  THE  "HERALD'S"  TABARD.  413 

which  as  a  hotel  was  born  and  ended  with  the  Exhibi- 
tion. There  we  had  a  very  happy  ten  days,  dining  at 
the  Metropole,  at  Dommeyer's,  at  Sudbahnhof,  and  at 
the  Trois  Freres ;  going  to  entertainments  at  the  Volks- 
garten  and  the  Neue  Welt,  listening  to  Johann  Strauss's 
wonderful  band,  and  the  military  music  which  is  going 
all  day  and  all  night,  and  thoroughly  enjoying  ourselves. 

It  was  Mr.  Bennett's  wish  that  I  should  make  a  pictur- 
esque tour  through  Germany,  describing  the  places  I  vis- 
ited, and  it  was  not  a  wish  that  I  was  likely  to  balk. 
So  we  went  from  Vienna  to  Gmiinden,  a  lovely  spot  on 
the  Trauensee,  where  we  tarried  a  little,  and  then  drove 
through  a  beautiful  country  to  Ischl  (during  the  drive  I 
found  the  plot  of  the  "  Blue  Chamber,"  the  next  Christ- 
mas Number  for  All  the  Year  Round),  and  after  a  week 
at  Ischl,  worked  our  way  through  Salzburg  to  my  old 
quarters  at  the  Vier  Jahres  Zeiten,  the  Four  Seasons  Ho- 
tel at  Munich.  There  we  remained  three  days,  taking  a 
run  over  to  Augsburg,  and  inspecting  the  famous  cellar 
of  the  Drei  Mohren;  and  thence  to  Nuremberg — full  of 
descriptive  matter — where  we  yet  remained  another  three 
days;  and  to  Frankfort,  where  we  remained  a  week.  An 
easy  journey  down  the  Rhine  by  Cologne  and  Ostend 
brought  us  home  by  the  end  of  September. 

Mr.  Bennett  desiring  to  have  some  letters  on  the  state 
of  Irish  affairs,  I  started  on  the  6th  October  for  Dub- 
lin, where  I  remained  several  days.  During  this  time  I 
had  long  interviews  with  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan,  editor  of 
the  Nation;  Mr.  Butt,  Q.C.,  M.P.,  whom  I  found  a  most 
delightful  companion;  and  Sir  John  Gray,  M. P.,  proprie- 
tor of  the  Freeman's  Journal.  My  old  friends.  Dr.  Tis- 
dall,  Chancellor  of  Christchurch  ;  Sanger,  head  of  the 
Post-office  Telegraphs ;  Nugent  Robinson,  and  John  Har- 
ris, lessee  of  the  Theatre  Royal,  took  care  that  I  should 
never  dine  alone.  As  the  guest  of  one  or  other  of  them 
I  met  the  pleasantest  people  in  the  city,  including  Judge 
Keogh  and  Father  Healey.  And  then  I  started  off  through 
the  West,  passing  a  day  with  the  Bishop  of  Cloyne  at 
Fermoy,  lunching  with  The  O'Donoghue  at  Tomies,  and 


414  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

filially  arriving  at  Mr.  Mitchell-Henry's  beautiful  place, 
Kyleraore  Castle.  The  result  of  my  tour  appeared  in  the 
Herald,  in  a  series  of  articles  called  "  Ireland  Expectant." 

On  the  31st  October  a  filibustering  American  steamer 
called  the  Virginius,  with  a  crew  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  men,  was  captured  near  Jamaica  by  the  Span- 
ish gunboat  Tornado,  and  taken  to  Cuba.  On  the  7th 
November  fifty-three  of  the  crew  of  the  captured  vessel, 
including  sixteen  British  subjects,  were  shot  at  St.  Jago. 
As  soon  as  this  news  was  known  in  the  United  States 
immense  excitement  was  manifested,  and  the  American 
Minister  at  Madrid  was,  on  the  14th,  instructed  to  protest 
against  the  executions,  as  an  outrage  to  humanity  and  an 
insult  to  the  American  Government.  Some  of  the  New 
York  press  reared  up,  and  were  urgent  that  a  declaration 
of  war  be  issued  at  once,  and  possession  taken  of  Cuba. 

On  the  15th  Mr.  Bennett  telegraphed  me  to  go  to  Paris 
at  once.  On  my  arrival  he  intimated  to  me  his  desire  that 
I  should  proceed  immediately  to  Madrid,  and  remain  there 
watching  the  course  of  events.  I  started  the  next  day 
via  Bayonne.  On  arriving  there,  I  learned  that  in  conse- 
quence of  the  Carlist  War  the  railway  connection  was  in- 
terrupted, and  that  my  only  chance  was  to  proceed  by  sea 
from  St.  Jean  de  Luz  to  Santander,  between  which  places 
there  was  some  kind  of  boat  service,  and  thence  by  rail 
to  Madrid. 

Boat  service,  indeed !  What  I  found  on  arrival  at  St. 
Jean  de  Luz  was  a  wretched  old  lug  called  Ihe  Bella, 
formerly  belonging  to  North  Shields,  which  had  been  re- 
christened  Quatro  Atnigos,  and  was  doing  duty  as  a  pas- 
senger-ship. She  Avas  slow,  she  was  wet,  she  was  filthy, 
slie  was  very  short-lianded,  she  had  no  cabin — of  course 
no  steward,  no  provisions.  All  I  could  get  to  cat  during 
tlie  twelve  hours'  passage  was  some  filthy  sausage  and 
some  mouldy  bread,  and  some  sour  wine  to  drink,  a  por- 
tion of  the  sailors'  mess,  which  I  bought  of  them.  Of 
the  horrors  of  the  inn  at  Santander,  which  called  itself 
tlic  Fonda  de  Kuropa,  I  do  not  like  to  think  ;  but  there  I 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  real  Spanish  grandee  or  duke, 


IN  THE  "HERALD'S"  TABARD.  415 

whose  title  I  forget,  but  whose  courtesy  and  kindness  I 
shall  ever  remember.  He  made  things  smoother  for  me 
than  they  otherwise  would  have  been,  and  was  most  agree- 
able and  useful  in  our  subsequent  day's  railway  journey 
to  Madrid. 

One  whole  day  and  two  nights  had  to  be  passed  in  this 
horrible  hole  at  Santander ;  for  there  was  some  pretence  of 
quarantine,  and,  on  landing,  our  baggage  was  to  be  taken 
from  us  to  the  lazaretto,  where  we  went  to  claim  it  the 
next  day.  It  had  been  thoroughly  fumigated,  and  a  por- 
tion of  it,  my  bundle  of  coats  and  rugs,  had  been  stolen. 

Next  day  we  started  at  8  a.m.,  and  after  an  intolera- 
bly wearisome  journey  of  twenty-four  hours,  arrived  at 
Madrid. 

I  stayed  in  Madrid  at  an  excellent  house,  the  Hotel  de 
Paris,  with  a  remarkable  hall-porter  named  Constantine, 
for  ten  days,  until  the  Yirginius  difficulty  had  settled  it- 
self. I  saw  all  the  life  of  the  city  from  my  windows, 
which  overlooked  the  famous  Puerta  del  Sol ;  I  walked 
and  drove,  went  to  the  club  and  to  the  opera,  and  a  good 
deal  in  society.  I  received  much  courtesy  and  hospitality 
from  General  Sickles,  Minister  to  the  United  States,  and 
Mr.  (now  Sir)  Henry  Layard,  our  representative  at  Mad- 
rid, with  both  of  whom  I  had  a  previous  acquaintance. 
Dining  one  night  at  the  British  Legation,  when  were 
present  the  Belgian,  German,  and  Italian  Ambassadors,  I 
found  myself  seated  next  to  the  latter,  and  was  delighted 
to  recognize  in  him  an  old  friend  in  the  person  of  Count 
Maffei,  so  long  and  so  well  known  as  an  attache  to  the 
Italian  Embassy  in  London. 

I  went  to  a  bull-fight  in  an  enormous  open  amphitheatre, 
calculated  to  hold  twelve  thousand  persons,  every  availa- 
ble inch  of  which  was  occupied,  and  Avhere,  contrary  to 
my  expectations,  I  was  much  interested,  and  did  not  feel 
in  the  least  qualmish  or  upset.  I  had  talks  Avith  Seiior 
Castelar  and  Seiior  Carvajal,  and  was  perpetually  tele- 
graphing to  Mr.  Bennett  and  to  the  Daily  JVeics. 

I  had  hopes  that  I  might  have  returned  from  Spain  more 
pleasantly  than  I  had  come,  but  I  found  there  was  no  other 
way  to  Paris  than  by  the  long  railway  journey  to  Sautan- 


416  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

der,  wliere  my  old  friend  the  Quatro  Amigos  was  waiting 
to  convey  me  across.  She  was  announced  to  sail  at  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  for  some  reason  or  other  it 
was  certainly  ten  before  we  started,  and  at  St.  Sebastian, 
where  we  should  only  have  touched,  there  was  a  festa  of 
some  kind  or  other  going  on,  to  which  the  captain  went 
off  in  his  best  clothes,  and  from  which  he  only  returned 
very  late  and  very  drunk.  He  did  not  know  much  about 
his  business  at  the  best  of  times,  and  now  he  seemed  to 
know  nothing,  Thongh  we  started  from  St.  Sebastian  in 
the  glow  of  a  magnificent  sunset,  when  within  half  an  hour 
of  our  destination  we  ran  into  a  thick  impenetrable  white 
fog,  a  Spanish-Scotch  mist,  through  which  one  could  not 
see  a  foot,  and  which  was  so  penetrating  as  to  get  through 
my  Belfast  ulster,  that  had  hitherto  defied  all  kinds  of 
even  American  weather.  When  we  found  ourselves  in 
this  predicament  (there  was  no  light  of  anj^  kind  on  board 
the  ship),  some  of  the  passengers,  seeing  the  captain's 
state,  began  to  grow  alarmed.  Why  two  of  them,  pleas- 
ant-spoken young  gentlemen,  brothers,  should  have  come 
to  me  I  never  could  understand.  But  they  came  ;  they  im- 
plored me  to  speak  to  the  captain,  Avho,  they  said,  would 
have  some  special  respect  for  me  as  an  Englishman  in  nau- 
tical matters,  and  to  induce  him  to  do  something — what, 
they  did  not  suggest.  I  was  willing,  I  said,  but  spoke  no 
Spanish.  This  excuse  was  overruled  by  their  offering  to 
interpret  for  me.  So  we  made  a  little  deputation  and  in- 
terviewed the  captain,  who  was  stupidly  drunk  and  imper- 
tinent, and  of  whom  we  could  make  notliing. 

But  our  little  talk  had  lliis  effect.  AVhile  it  was  taking 
jilace  I  had  been  listening  attentively.  My  sense  of  hear- 
ing has  always  been  peculiarly  good,  and  tliough  I  could 
not  see  my  hand  before  ray  face,  I  could  distinctly  hear 
and  recognize  the  sound  of  waves  breaking  on  a  shore.  It 
Avas  perfectly  evident  that  we  were  drifting  towards  land, 
and  might  in  a  few  moments  be  hurled  against  the  rocks 
which  guard  that  iron-bound  coast.  This  I  explained  to 
my  companions,  and  to  some  other  of  the  passengers  who 
came  up  at  the  time  ;  and  it  had  such  an  effect  upon  them 
that  tLey  bodily  shook  the  captain  inlo  consciousness  and 


IN  THE  "HERALD'S"   TABARD.  417 

obedience,  and  caused  him  to  steam  away  in  a  perfectly 
opposite  course  from  that  we  had  been  running.  I  am 
fully  persuaded  this  saved  our  lives.  We  beat  about  all 
night,  tossing  hither  and  thither,  and  when  daylight  came, 
and  the  mist  rose,  found  ourselves  many  miles  from  the 
harbor  which  we  should  have  made  twelve  hours  before. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  delight  with  which  I  found  myself 
once  more  on  dry  land  at  the  little  port  of  St.  Jean  de  Luz. 

After  a  month's  interval  I  received  warning  that  my 
services  would  again  be  required  on  a  foreign  mission,  and 
that  this  time  I  should  be  called  upon  to  undertake  a 
longer  journey  than  I  had  yet  performed  while  in  the 
HeralcVs  employ.  It  is  noteworthy  that  our  good  Ameri- 
can cousins  while  always  amiably  satirizing  the  devotion 
of  the  English  to  their  rulers,  yet  take  the  greatest  inter- 
est in  the  movements  of  our  Royal  Family,  and  Mr.  Ben- 
nett justly  considered  that  the  approaching  marriage  of 
H.  R.  H.  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh  was  a  subject  which  ought 
to  be  specially  treated  for  the  gratification  of  the  HeralcVs 
readers;  not  merely  taking  into  consideration  the  position 
of  the  bridegroom,  but  the  fact  that  various  grand  dukes, 
relatives  and  connections  of  the  bride,  had  been  recently 
sojourning  in  New  York,  and  that  a  certain  alliance  more 
or  less  intimate  had  recently  existed  between  St.  Peters- 
burg and  the  United  States.  Extremes  meet,  and  the  most 
autocratic  and  the  most  democratic  of  governments  have, 
I  suppose,  something  in  common. 

At  all  events  it  was  Mr.  Bennett's  wish  that  I  should  go 
to  St.  Petersburg  in  good  time  to  be  present  at  the  royal 
wedding;  that  my  description  thereof  should  be  full  and 
graphic;  and  that  it  should  be  transmitted  by  telegraph 
and  cabled,  so  that  it  might  appear  in  the  Herald  on  the 
succeeding  day. 

I  was  not  to  have  the  pleasure  of  the  company  of  my 
friend  Archibald  Forbes  on  this  occasion,  as  I  had  at  first 
hoped.  We  had  made  arrangements  for  our  journey  to- 
gether, but  at  the  last  moment  he  was  despatched  as  sjie- 
cial  commissioner  for  the  Daily  JVeics,  to  inquire  into  and 
report  upon  the  progress  of  the  famine  just  notified  as 

18* 


418  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

having  commenced  in  Bengal,  and  had  already  taken  his 
departure  for  India.  So  I  started  on  the  10th  January, 
travelling  via  Brussels  and  Berlin,  and  finding  on  board 
the  steamer  two  distinguished  London  members  of  the 
healing  craft  —  Dr.  Alfred  Meadows  and  Mr.  Alfred 
Cooper — who  were  going  to  stay  with  the  well-known  Mr. 
Baird  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  to  whom  I  had  introductions. 
As  far  as  Bex-lin  we  travelled  pleasantly  together,  but 
thence  they  pursued  their  route  at  once,  while  I  awaited 
the  arrival  of  my  friend  Mr.  Edward  Dicey,  who  was 
going  to  represent  the  Daily  Telegraph  at  the  wedding, 
and  with  whom  I  had  arranged  to  travel  to  St.  Petersburg. 

I  spent  two  days  in  that  dullest  of  dull  cities,  Berlin, 
pleasantly  enough,  thanks  to  the  cheery  hospitality  and 
good  company  of  Mr.  Beatty-Kingston,  who,  as  the  spe- 
cial correspondent  of  the  Daily  Telegraph  there,  knew 
and  was  known  to  everybody.  He  took  me  to  call  upon, 
among  other  notable  people,  Dr.  Strousbcrg,  the  then  sup- 
posed millionaire,  who  Avas  living  in  magnificent  style.  I 
had  not  seen  the  doctor  for  a  very  long  time  —  not,  in- 
deed, since,  sixteen  years  before,  he  was  living  in  a  very 
small  way  in  London,  owning  and  editing  Sharp^s  Lo7i- 
don  Magazine,  to  which  I  was  an  occasional  contributor. 
For  an  article  of  mine,  value,  I  suppose,  about  thirty  shil- 
lings, he  was  still  in  my  debt ;  but  I  did  not  remind  him 
of  this  circumstance,  though  we  spoke  of  our  old  literary 
connection.  On  the  second  day  Edward  Dicey  arrived, 
and  after  a  capital  dinnei-  at  Ilann's  restaurant,  Unter  der 
Linden,  we  started  at  11  p.m.  for  St.  l*etersburg,  a  saloon 
carriage  with  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  suite  forming  a 
portion  of  the  train.  At  three  o'clock  the  next  day  we 
arrived  at  the  Russian  frontier,  where  a  special  imperial 
train  was  in  waiting  for  the  Prince  and  his  suite  ;  but 
witli  the  disadvantage  of  having  a  remarkably  drunken 
Ilussian  officer  in  the  carriage,  we  pursued  our  journey 
all  that  niglit  and  the  next  day,  not  arriving  at  St.  Peters- 
burg until  8  P.M.  on  the  15th, 

I  made  ray  way  to  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre,  which  is 
the  home  of  our  Queen's  Messengers,  and  to  which  T  had 
been  reconnnended  by  some  friends  in  the  Foreign  Office. 


IN  THE  "HERALD'S"   TABARD.  419 

It  is  kept  by  Mr.  Sclimitz,  and  was,  I  am  bound  to  say, 
worthy  of  the  praises  it  had  received.  There  I  found  a 
collection  of  English  and  American  journalists:  Mr.  Senior 
for  the  Daily  JSFeios ;  Mr.  Tuttle  for  the  Neio  York  Trih- 
wie;  Mr.  John  Furley,  of  Red  Cross  and  Ambulance 
fame,  for  the  Standard;  and  Mr.  Sydney  Hall,  the  artist, 
for  the  Graphic.  Also  in  the  hotel,  and  in  the  next  rooms 
to  mine,  was  Mr.  (now  Sir)  Frederick  Napier  Broome, 
Governor  of  West  Australia,  who  was  representing  the 
Times  on  this  occasion.  During  my  stay  in  St.  Peters- 
burg I  spent  most  of  my  time  in  company  with  Mr. 
Broome,  whom  I  found  a  most  agreeable  companion,  and 
whose  description  of  the  wedding  ceremony,  telegraphed 
to  the  Times,  was  one  of  the  clearest,  most  succinct,  and 
most  graphic  bits  of  special  correspondent's  work  which 
I  have  ever  seen  performed.  On  the  morning  after  my 
arrival  I  called  on  Governor  Marshal  Jewell,  the  American 
Minister,  a  handsome,  hospitable,  well-bred  man,  whose 
acquaintance  I  had  made  the  previous  year  at  Vienna, 
where  he  was  a  visitor;  and  upon  Mr.  Schuyler,  the  Amer- 
ican Consul  and  well-known  author  of  "  Khiva,"  "  Peter 
the  Great,"  etc.,  whose  thorough  acquaintance  with  the 
Russian  language,  literature,  manners,  etc.,  was  of  the 
greatest  assistance  to  me,  and  who  devoted  to  me  his  ser- 
vices in  the  most  friendly  manner.  I  had  letters  of  in- 
troduction to  Mr.  Mitchell,  the  British  Consul-general, 
from  whom  I  had  been  told  to  expect  every  aid;  but  Mr. 
Mitchell  was,  under  peculiar  circumstances,  aAvay  from 
St.  Petersburg  at  the  time,  so  I  called  upon  the  English 
Ambassador,  Lord  Augustus  Loftus,  which  was  not  the 
same  thing. 

There  was  plenty  of  festivity  at  St.  Petersburg,  and 
genuine  hospitality  on  nearly  all  sides.  I  found  my  med- 
ical friends  of  the  steamer,  with  one  Mr.  Peter  Wilkin- 
son, a  shy  and  retiring  student,  installed  under  the  friend- 
ly roof  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Baird,  from  whom  I  re- 
ceived a  cordial  welcome  and  great  kindness.  Governor 
and  Mrs.  Jewell,  at  the  American  Legation,  made  me  free 
of  their  house  and  their  opera -box,  and  invited  me  to  a 
grand  reception  and  ball,  given  in  honor  of  the  occasion. 


420  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

at  which  Madame  Patti  and  her  husband,  the  Marquis  de 
Caux,  were  present.  Our  host  of  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre 
invited  all  the  foreign  visitors  to  a  great  excursion  to  the 
monastery  and  cemetery  of  Sergis,  winding  up  with  a 
grand  dinner  at  Krassnoi-Kabatschoff,  a  large  winter  res- 
taurant, where  the  entertainment  was  supplemented  by 
dancing,  and  did  not  conclude  until  nearly  2  a.m.  Then 
there  were  troika  drives,  tabogganing  on  the  ice-hills  in 
the  suburbs,  dinners  with  the  Bairds,  dinners  with  Mr. 
Schuyler,  dinners  among  ourselves,  suppers  at  out-town 
restaurants,  where  the  gypsies  sing,  a  grand  ball  given 
by  the  noblesse  in  honor  of  the  wedding,  and  a  rout  at 
the  English  Embassy. 

I  had  also  plenty  of  work ;  for,  besides  letters  to  the 
JTei'ald,  I  was  under  agreement  to  send  to  the  Scotsma7i, 
with  which  journal  I  had  long  had  a  pleasant  connection, 
such  scraps  of  telegrai^hic  intelligence  as  I  thought  might 
be  useful  to  them ;  and  as  on  this  occasion  I  had  not 
brought  Simpson  with  me,  the  work  had  to  be  done  with 
my  own  hand.  Then  there  were  preparations  for  the 
grand  day  :  calling  on  Monsieur  de  Grote,  the  official  who 
had  charge  of  the  accommodation  for  foreign  journalists  ; 
interviewing  the  head  of  the  telegraph  bureau,  explaining 
my  requirements,  and  depositing  a  sum  of  money  to  cover 
what  I  imagined  would  be  the  extent  of  my  message. 
At  my  last  interview  with  Mr.  Bennett  I  had  arranged, 
instead  of  wiring  to  London  and  through  the  Anglo- 
American  cable,  to  send  my  message  direct  to  the  Paris 
office  of  the  Herald,  and  that  it  should  be  thence  trans- 
mitted by  the  French  cable.  I  knew  that  the  London  cor- 
respondence would  sufficiently  occupy  the  London  wires 
to  make  tlie  safe  transmission  of  my  message  a  matter  of 
doubt. 

The  marriage  ceremony  took  ])lace  at  noon  on  the  23d 
Jamiary,  at  the  Winter  Palace,  and  was  a  most  magnifi- 
cent sight.  The  peculiarity  of  the  Russian  costume,  the 
combination  of  sumptuous  velvet  and  magnificent  furs, 
witli  a  vast  number,  among  the  ladies,  of  sujierb  dia- 
monds, was  very  striking,  nor  did  I  ever  see  such  a  mass 
of  uniforms.     Looking  down  from  the  gallery  especially 


IN  THE   "HERALD'S"  TABAKD.  421 

devoted  to  the  correspondents,  the  only  two  persons  not 
in  uniform  I  could  see  among  the  crowd  of  people  throng- 
ing the  aisle  were  the  American  diplomatists.  After  the 
ceremonies  in  the  Winter  Palace  of  the  Russian  Church, 
the  Anglican  wedding -service  was  performed  by  Dean 
Stanley  in  the  Hall  Alexander,  a  place  only  remarkable 
for  its  very  cramped  proportions  and  poor  decorations. 
It  was  here  that  the  Empress  -  mother,  being  overcome 
with  emotion,  had  to  sit  down,  and  nearly  fainted  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  service  when  the  newly  -  married  pair 
came  to  salute  her.  In  the  stampede  from  this  place  the 
crush  was  terrific,  and  there  were  nearly  some  fatal  acci- 
dents. From  our  position  we  could  look  down  upon  the 
crowd,  which,  with  its  variegated  uniforms — scarlet,  lilac 
and  silver,  white  and  gold,  the  grand  kaftans,  colored 
turbans,  and  flowing  robes  from  Bokhara  and  Samarcand, 
dotted  here  and  there  with  enormous  cuirassiers  of  the 
Imperial  Guard,  their  silver  helmets  mounted  by  golden 
eagles  —  formed  an  extraordinary  combination  of  color 
and  brilliancy.  Old  General  Kauffmann,  the  hero  of 
Khiva,  an  immense  popular  favorite  at  the  time,  got  en- 
tangled in  this  crowd,  and,  being  short  and  feeble,  might 
have  come  to  serious  grief  had  not  his  position  been  seen 
by  the  Czarowitz,  who  plunged  headlong  into  the  mass 
and  personally  rescued  the  old  gentleman. 

It  was  four  o'clock  before,  terribly  faint  and  weary,  I 
got  back  to  my  hotel,  and  had  to  set  to  work  at  once. 
My  orders  were  to  send  about  twelve  hundred  words ;  a 
message  of  such  an  indicative  character  and  so  framed 
that  it  could  be  amplified  by  those  who  received  it.  By 
5.15  I  sent  off  eight  hundred  and  eighteen  words,  and 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  later  another  three  hundred 
and  eighty-six  words,  making  in  all  twelve  hundred  and 
four  words.  I  was,  of  course,  particularly  anxious  as  to 
the  fate  of  my  work,  and  was  not  reassured  until  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  when  I  received  a  telegram  from  Paris, 
signed  by  Mr.  Grenville  Murray,  Mr,  Russell  Young,  and 
Mr.  Saner,  announcing  that  the  whole  message  had  gone 
safely  through,  and  offering  me  hearty  congratulations. 


422  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

I  suppose  they  were  deserved,  for  a  leading  article  in  the 
Herald,  printed  simultaneously  with  the  message  the  next 
morning,  said  of  my  account,  that  "  in  point  of  terseness 
and  vigor  of  language,  in  vivid  portraiture  of  one  of  the 
greatest  spectacles  of  the  century,  it  had  scarcely,  if  ever, 
been  equalled  in  our  journalism ;"  and  I  received  a  special 
letter  of  thanks  from  Mr.  Bennett. 

I  also,  on  the  same  evening,  telegraphed  three  hundred 
words  to  the  Scotsman. 

I  remained  yet  a  few  days  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  then 
returned  home,  with  Dr.  Meadows  as  my  pleasant  travel- 
ling companion.  This  was  the  last  expedition  of  any  mo- 
ment which  I  undertook  at  the  instance  of  the  Herald 
proprietary,  though  I  remained  in  their  service  for  more 
than  a  year  afterwards.  I  attended  whatever  of  import- 
ance was  going  on  in  London ;  I  wrote  a  weekly  letter 
descriptive  of  the  ordinary  course  of  affairs  here  ;  I  sent 
book  and  picture  notices,  and  wrote  on  current  topics  of 
literature  and  art ;  I  went  to  Ireland  once  or  twice — on 
the  last  occasion  in  the  spring  of  '75,  when  I  interviewed 
John  Mitchel,  the  patriot  convict,  who  had  just  returned 
from  America,  who  was  in  extremely  feeble  health,  and 
who  died  within  a  few  days  of  my  seeing  him. 

But  by  this  time  my  own  journal  2'he  World,  wliich  I 
had  started  eight  or  ten  months  previously,  had  so  grown 
in  importance  as  to  warrant  my  looking  upon  it  as  being 
fairly  established,  and  it  made  such  claims  upon  my  time 
that  it  Avould  have  been  impossible  for  me  to  have  left 
London  for  more  than  tAVO  or  three  days,  while  it  wJis 
equally  impossible  to  allow  Mr.  Bennett  to  be  under  the 
impression  that  he  had  still  the  command  of  my  time.  I 
therefore  placed  myself  in  communication  with  him,  an- 
)i()unciiig  my  wish  to  be  relieved  of  tlie  ap])ointment  which 
I  had  now  held  for  more  than  two  years,  and  giving  my 
reasons  for  tendering  my  resignation.  Mr.  Bennett  met 
mo  in  the  kindest  and  most  liberal  way,  thanked  me  for 
the  services  which  I  liad  rendered  to  his  journal,  and  en- 
closed a  check  for  three  months'  salary,  "  in  lieu,"  as  he 
said,  "  of  a  quarter's  notice,"  though  there  was  nothing 


m  THE  "HERALD'S"  TABARD.  423 

in  our  agreement  to  render  such  a  payment  obligatory  on 
his  part. 

And  thus  pleasantly  closed  an  engagement,  during  the 
fulfilment  of  which  I  enjoyed  much  happiness,  and  greatly 
extended  my  knowledge  of  the  world. 


424  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 
"the  world." 

While  engaged  in  Mr.  Bennett's  service  I  could  not 
avoid  the  feeling  that  the  work  which  I  was  called  upon 
to  do  for  the  Neio  York  Herald,  though  well  remunerated, 
pleasant,  exciting,  and  amusing,  was,  so  far  as  its  physical 
requirements  were  concerned,  more  suitable  for  a  man  in 
the  vigor  of  youth  than  one  who  had  attained  his  middle 
age.  While  there  is  nothing  so  pleasant  as  travelling  for 
pleasure,  starting  when  you  like,  stopping  when  you  like, 
and  diversifying  your  route  according  to  your  inclination, 
there  is  little  more  harassing  than  being  at  the  beck  and 
call  of  any  one,  liable  to  be  sent  to  the  ends  of  Europe  at 
an  hour's  notice,  and  nothing  more  fatiguing  than  a  mo- 
notonous journey  of  many  hours  for  purely  business  pur- 
poses. 

In  the  year  18V3,  between  the  beginning  of  May  and 
the  end  of  December,  without  taking  into  account  the 
enormous  journeying  I  had  done  in  the  States  and  my 
voyage  over  the  Atlantic,  I  crossed  and  rccrossed  the 
English  Channel  sixteen  times  in  this  year,  and  was  only 
at  home  two  months  out  of  the  twelve.  Tlie  succeeding 
year  opened  with  my  visit  to  St.  Petersburg,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh's  wedding,  and  tliough 
there  was  no  actual  prospect  of  my  being  called  away  so 
much,  at  any  time  the  contingency  might  arise.  I  began 
to  feel,  therefore,  with  the  burglar  intruded  upon  by  Mrs. 
Pardigle's  family,  that  I  wanted  an  end  to  this.  But  I 
did  not  see  how  conveniently  it  could  be  brought  about. 
When  T  first  entertained  the  idea  of  seeking  employment 
from  Mr.  Bennett,  it  was  to  act  in  the  capacity  of  his  Lon- 
don correspondent,  but  I  was  in  no  position  then  to  de- 
cline tlie  travelling  and  general  European  work  which  he 


"THE  WORLD."  425 

desired  me  to  undertake  ;  moreover,  such  an  appointment 
as  I  held,  with  an  excellent  salary  attached  to  it,  was  very 
seldom  to  be  obtained.  To  a  young  unmarried  man  no 
more  delightful  berth  could  have  been  offered,  and  I  felt 
that  it  would  be  madness  in  me  to  make  even  a  suggestion 
of  an  alteration  in  the  work  until  I  had  arranged  for  my- 
self an  equivalent  on  which  I  could  fall  back. 

These  were  not  the  only  motives  by  which  I  was 
prompted  to  overhaul  my  resources  and  see  whether  any- 
thing could  be  made  of  them.  The  demon  Doubt  under 
whose  dominion  I  had  passed  so  many  anxious  hours  be- 
fore resigning  my  situation  in  the  Post-office  had  again 
got  me  in  his  grip.  How  long  should  I  continue  to  hold 
this  new  appointment  ?  Would  my  health  last  ?  Should 
I  be  able  to  give  equal  satisfaction  to  my  employer  when 
the  novelty  of  my  style  had  ceased  to  interest  his  read- 
ers ?  Were  not  the  advantages,  many  and  great  as  they 
were,  of  my  position  almost  counterbalanced  by  the  ne- 
cessity of  my  frequent  absences  from  home,  and  what 
was  virtually  the  break-up  of  my  domestic  life?  Final- 
ly, what  could  I  do  to  insure  a  decent  livelihood  unac- 
companied by  the  drawbacks  of  my  then  mode  of  life  ? 

Now,  I  had  for  years  had  a  feeling,  confirmed  by  in- 
disputable experience,  that  the  contributions  which,  dur- 
ing my  long  apprenticeship  to  journalism,  I  had  supplied 
to  various  periodicals  with  which  I  had  been  connected 
had  undoubtedl}^  been  of  service  to  my  emj^loyers.  From 
the  early  days  of  the  Weekly  Chronicle  to  the  last  "Fla- 
neur "  feuilleton  in  the  Morning  Star  my  work  had  inva- 
riably attracted  notice,  comment,  and  criticism,  favorable 
or  unfavorable,  according  to  the  taste  and  temper  of  the 
commentator,  but  it  had  never  gone  unregarded,  and  had 
always  been  thought  worth  the  money  it  earned  by  those 
who  paid  for  it.  Light  and  flippant,  wanting  in  dignity 
and  tone,  it  may  have  been  ;  personal  in  the  inoffensive 
sense  of  the  word  it  undoubtedly  was,  but  it  was,  I  hope, 
neither  vulgar,  scurrilous,  malignant,  nor  vindictive;  above 
all,  it  was  amusing,  and  that  was  a  quality  which,  to  the 
majority  of  newspaper  proprietors  and  editors  of  those 
days,  was  stamped  with  the  mark  of  the  Beast.     With 


426  i^IFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

their  readers  it  was  different ;  to  them  the  tiniest  thread- 
like rivulet  of  fancy  in  the  midst  of  a  dreary  desert  of 
fact  was  acceptable,  and  eagerly  seized  upon. 

So,  possessing  this  belief  in  myself,  I  had,  after  much 
laborious  excogitation,  come  to  the  idea  that  a  new  and 
original  journal,  wholly  differing  in  style  from  anything 
then  existent,  might  have  a  tolerable  chance  of  success. 
I  never  for  one  moment  thought  that  frivolous  chatter 
of  the  kind  I  have  indicated,  however  well  done,  was 
sufficient  in  itself  to  constitute  a  newsj^aper — that  is  an 
error  which  has  been  proved  to  be  such  many  times  both 
before  and  since  the  epoch  of  which  I  am  writing.  The 
chatter,  in  itself  bald  and  bad,  has  been  unsustained  by 
anything  of  good  ;  but  my  opinion  was  that  all  the  light 
and  gossipy  news  of  the  day,  properly  winnowed  and 
attractively  set  forth,  backed  by  good  political  and  social 
articles,  written  in  a  bolder,  freer,  and  less  turgid  style 
than  that  with  Avhich  such  topics  were  commonly  han- 
dled, with  first-rate  dramatic,  literary,  and  musical  criti- 
cism, all  laid  on  different  lines  from  those  then  existing, 
would  form  a  journalistic  amalgam  which  would  most 
probably  hit  the  public  taste.  Years  before,  while  still 
in  the  service  of  the  Post-office,  I  had  conceived  and 
cherished  this  scheme  ;  but  in  those  days  I  had  not  mere- 
ly no  capital,  but  no  time  to  devote  to  its  exploitation. 
But  it  was  destined  to  be  carried  out,  and  it  was — thus  : 

Some  six  or  seven  years  before,  at  the  dinner-table  of 
]\Ir.  IBellew,  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  IMr.  Gren- 
ville  Murray,  of  whom  I  had  heard  much,  often  from 
Dickens  and  others,  and  whom  I  consequently  regarded 
witli  great  interest.  A  man  in  person  small,  and  dark 
complexion,  with  curly  hair  beginning  to  turn  gray  ;  in 
manner  vivacious  and  fascinating,  glib  of  speech,  felici- 
tous in  ilhistrntion,  and  conversable  on  all  toj)ics.  After 
our  introduction  he  came  round  and  seated  liimself  by 
nic,  and  we  talked  earnestly  for  an  liour.  I  had,  of 
course,  no  idea  of  how  my  future  was  to  l)e  iniluenced 
l)y  my  new  ac(|uaintance,  and  when  not  listening  to  him 
I  was  occupie<l  in  thinking  of  liis  past. 

Born  with  a  bar  sinister,  but  always  understood  to  be 


"THE  WORLD."  427 

the  son  of  an  English  duke,  whose  character  and  surround- 
ings he  depicted  with  frightful  fidelity  in  his  novel  of 
"Young  Brown,"  Grenville  Murray,  under  the  auspices  of 
Lord  Palmerston,  for  whose  interest  in  him  there  were 
special  reasons,  received  an  appointment  in  the  Foreign 
Office,  and  was  sent  out  as  attache  to  Lord  Westmoreland 
at  Vienna.  According  to  the  current  story,  he  had  pri- 
vately obtained  Lord  Palmerston's  permission  to  act  as 
correspondent  for  the  Moraing  Post  in  the  city  to  which 
he  was  accredited,  but  his  letters  having  miscarried,  the 
secret  was  discovered  ;  and  though  Mr.  Murray  was  not 
dismissed,  he  was,  at  Lord  AYestmoreland's  indignant  pro- 
test, recalled  from  Vienna.  He  was  then  appointed  at- 
tache to  the  British  Embassy  at  Constantinople,  of  which 
Sir  Stratford  Canning  was  the  head,  and  a  rumor  of  the 
Vienna  escapades  having,  it  is  supposed,  reached  that  able 
but  irritable  martinet,  Mr.  Murray  was  sent  temporarily 
to  fill  the  vice-consulship  at  Mitylene,  which  was  looked 
upon  as  quasi-banishment.  From  this  retreat  he  wrote 
and  sent  to  Household  Words,  then  just  established,  a 
series  of  admirable  sketches  of  Greek  and  Turkish  life 
and  character,  called  "The  Roving  Englishman,"  which 
were  immediately  published  and  eagerly  read.  But  for 
a  certain  limited  portion  of  the  public  they  had  another 
interest,  of  which  Dickens,  who  liked  them  greatly,  was 
wholly  unaware.  Under  the  title  of  Sir  Hector  Stubble, 
Murray  had  drawn  a  merciless  but  unmistakable  caricature 
of  the  head  of  his  embassy,  Sir  Stratford  Canning  ;  so  un- 
mistakable was  the  portrait  that  the  great  man's  enemies, 
and  naturally  all  his  friends,  fearful  lest  by  any  chance 
the  arrow  aimed  at  his  amotir  jyvopre  should  miss  its  mark, 
immediately  forwarded  him  copies  of  the  number  contain- 
ing this  article,  so  that  on  the  arrival  of  the  English  mail 
of  that  day  at  Constantinople,  the  usual  bags  of  the  For- 
eign Office  were  found  supplemented  by  an  enormous  num- 
ber of  newspaper  sacks,  all  filled  with  copies  of  Household 
Words.  Sir  Stratford  Canning  was  furious,  and  when  ho 
discovered  who  was  his  assailant  his  rage  knew  no  bounds. 
He  determined  that  Mr.  Murray  should  be  condemned  to 
perpetual  exile  to  Mitylene  ;  but  the  vice-consulship  was 


428  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LOXDON  LIFE. 

soon  after  filled  up,  and  it  was  necessary  to  find  some  new 
duties  for  the  unwelcome  attache.  For  some  time  he  was 
employed  in  carrying  despatches  between  London  and 
Constantinople,  but  as  it  was  evident  at  the  Foreign  Ofiice 
that  the  breach  between  him  and  Sir  Stratford  Canning 
could  never  be  healed,  Mr.  Murray  received  an  appoint- 
ment as  Consul-general  at  Odessa. 

Thither  he  proceeded,  and  there  he  remained  for  ten 
years,  jeopardizing  his  position  and  rendering  himself  a 
nuisance  in  the  eyes  of  his  official  superiors  in  Downing 
Street  by  waging  a  constant  warfare  with  the  English 
merchants  in  the  place  in  regard  to  certain  fees  which  he 
claimed  as  his  due,  and  the  payment  of  which  they  re- 
sisted. Finally,  Lord  Derby,  then  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Aifairs,  being  appealed  to,  gave  his  judgment  against  the 
Consul-general's  claim,  thereby  earning  undying  hostility 
of  the  implacable  Murray,  who,  throwing  up  his  appoint- 
ment and  coming  back  to  England,  assumed  his  journal- 
istic pursuits,  in  the  discharge  of  which  he  never  lost  an 
opportunity  of  attacking  his  foe. 

When  I  met  Grenville  Murray  at  Mr.  Bellew's  table 
our  chat  was  for  the  most  part  on  undefined  subjects, 
although  I  think  I  mentioned  to  him  the  pleasure  with 
which  I  had  read  "  The  Roving  Englishman,"  and  told 
him  the  story  related  to  me  by  Wills  of  the  arrival  of 
the  newspa])er  sacks  of  Iloxisehold  Words  at  the  Con- 
stantinople Embassy,  at  which  Murray  laughed  much, 
l»rofc'ssing  to  hear  it  for  the  first  time.  Afterwards  I 
presented  him  to  Mrs.  Yates,  and  in  the  course  of  a  gas- 
Ironomic  discussion  invited  us  to  an  afternoon  tea  at  his 
cliaml>ers  in  the  Albany,  where  he  promised  us  extra  de- 
licious coffee  and  Neapolitan  ice  sui)plied  and  jjrepared  by 
his  Italian  valet.  This  promise  was  more  than  specifical- 
ly performed. 

I  saw  Mr.  Murray  half  a  dozen  times  after  this  ;  but 
though  he  was  then  generally  credited  with  the  editor- 
fihij),  and  indeed  with  most  of  the  ])r<)dn('(ions,  of  tlie 
Queen'' s  Mcssenf/er,  a  bitterly  satirical  journal  of  those 
days,  he  never  admitted  the  fact  to  me.  On  one  or  two 
occasions  when  the  newspaper  was  named,  he  spoke  of  it 


"THE  WORLD."  429 

as  though  it  were  the  property  of  a  syndicate  for  whom 
ho  acted  as  agent.  In  June,  1869,  there  appeared  in  the 
Queen'' s  Messenger  an  article  entitled  "  Bob  Coachington 
and  Lord  Jarvey,"  which  was  considered  by  the  present 
Lord  Carrington  to  cast  aspersions  on  his  deceased  father. 
Acting  upon  the  cui'rent  impression  that  Grenville  Murray 
was  the  person  responsible  for  the  paper,  Lord  Carrington 
waited  outside  the  Conservative  Club,  of  which  Mr.  Mur- 
ray was  a  member,  and  assaulted  him  as  he  emerged.  A 
charge  of  assault  was  preferred  against  Lord  Carrington 
by  Mr.  Murray,  which  was  heard  on  the  7th  July  at  the 
Marlborough  Street  police-court.  Here  is  what  appears 
in  reference  to  the  affair  in  Irving's  "  Annals  of  Our 
Time:"  "After  much  wrangling  Mr.  Murray  denied  the 
authorship  of  the  article,  but  declined  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion relating  to  his  connection  with  the  paper.  A  number 
of  letters,  articles  in  manuscript,  and  corrected  proofs  of 
articles  were  shown  to  him,  but  he  declined  to  say  whether 
they  were  in  his  handwriting.  He  admitted  that  he  had 
written  some  articles  in  the  Qu€en''s  Messenger,  but  said 
he  would  rather  have  cut  off  his  right  hand  than  have 
written  others.  Lord  Carrington  was  ultimately  bound 
over  to  keep  the  peace  in  reference  to  one  summons,  and 
committed  to  ti'ial  for  tlie  second,  charging  assault.  At 
the  close  of  the  proceedings  a  disgracefiil  struggle  took 
place  between  the  friends  of  the  contending  parties  for 
the  possession  of  a  box  containing  papers  belonging  to 
the  Queen^s  Messenger,  and  said  to  liave  been  improperly 
transferred  to  the  keeping  of  Lord  Carrington's  solicitor, 
Mr.  Newman."  Ten  days  later  Lord  Carrington  preferred 
a  charge  of  perjury  against  Mr.  Grenville  Murray  in  con- 
nection with  his  denial  of  the  authorship  of  certain  arti- 
cles in  the  Queen^s  Messenger.  The  case  was  remanded, 
Mr.  Murray  being  admitted  to  bail  in  heavy  recognizances. 
On  the  29th  July,  the  day  of  remand,  Mr.  Murray  failed 
to  appear,  and — I  again  quote  Irving — "  the  police  magis- 
trate refusing  to  give  credence  to  the  plea  of  sudden  at- 
tack of  illness  in  Paris,  whither  he  was  said  to  have  gone 
to  see  his  son,  his  recognizances  were  ordered  to  be  es- 
treated, and  a  warrant  issued  for  his  apprehension." 


430  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Grenville  Murray  never  set  foot  on  English  shore  again. 
He  established  himself  in  Paris,  in  delightful  quarters  in 
the  Rue  de  I'llniversite  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain, 
where  he  carried  on,  it  is  believed,  a  complete  literary- 
manufactory,  all  the  work  being  suggested,  supervised, 
and  occasionally  retouched  by  the  master -hand.  Cur- 
rency is  given  to  this  story  by  the  impossibility  of  the 
fact  of  all  the  work  credited  to  him  simultaneously  spring- 
ing from  one  brain  and  one  hand.  He  was  at  once  novel- 
ist, descriptive  essayist,  leader  -  writer,  and  compiler  of 
statistical  research  in  a  dozen  different  quarters.  He  con- 
tributed regularly  to  the  Daily  JVews,  he  sent  seven  or 
eight  closely  printed  columns,  dealing  with  all  kinds  of 
subjects,  every  week  to  the  Neio  York  Herald,  of  which, 
at  my  introduction,  he  had  been  appointed  Paris  corre- 
spondent. His  sketches  of  Parisian  and  French  provincial 
life  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  were  imbued  Avith  special 
knowledge,  and  formed  most  delightful  reading.  His 
novel  "  The  Member  for  Paris  "  had  a  large  circulation  ; 
and  when  "  Young  Brown  "  appeared  in  the  pages  of  the 
Cornhill  it  caused  an  immediate  sensation.  Besides  his 
English  and  American  work,  he  was  believed  to  be  a  reg- 
ular contributor  to  the  D'ehats,  and  an  occasional  corre- 
spondent of  the  Figaro  and  other  Parisian  papers. 

Such  was  the  man  to  whom,  having  always  experienced 
at  his  hands  the  greatest  courtesy  and  politeness,  >vith  a 
certain  amount  of  deference,  certainly  not  due  from  a 
leader  so  much  older  and  abler  than  myself,  I  one  day,  in 
crossing  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  explained  my  dreams 
of  "what  might  have  been"  had  I  only  possessed  a  little 
cai)ital  and  a  little  courage.  Ho  liad  boon  shambling  along 
by  my  side  in  his  usual  common  straw -hat  and  shabby 
shooting-coat — "one  comfort," he  used  to  say — "  one  com- 
fort in  living  among  these  frogs"  —  he  always  spoke  of 
Frcnchnu'ii  as  frogs — "  is  that  no  one  cares  a  rap  what 
kind  of  clothes  you  wear"— but  when  I  ceased  speaking 
he  stopped,  sat  down  on  tlie  edge  of  one  of  the  fountain 
])aHinH,  and  looking  at  me  with  his  always  keenly  bright 
eyes,  rapidly  asked  me  some  lialf- dozen  questions,  to 
w  hicli  T  replied.     We  resumed  our  walk,  and  went  to  his 


"THE  WORLD."  431 

quarters  in  the  Rue  de  I'Universite.  There  he  ran  over 
all  I  had  said,  asked  whether  it  would  be  agreeable  to  me 
to  take  him  as  a  partner  in  the  suggested  enterprise,  of 
the  success  of  which  he  had  no  doubt,  suggested  that  cer- 
tain inquiries  should  be  made  by  me  on  my  return  to 
England,  whither  I  was  going  the  next  day,  and  sent  me 
off  in  the  happiest  frame  of  excited  hope.  The  question 
of  capital  he  had  disposed  of  in  his  usual  impressive  way: 
we  could  each  produce  some  two  or  three  hundred  pounds, 
he  said,  to  make  a  start,  and  before  that  was  expended 
our  combined  efforts  would  have  speeded  our  venture  far 
on  the  high-road  to  success. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  I  returned  home  with  my  mind 
sufficiently  full,  and  that  there  was  no  lack  of  subjects  for 
domestic  discussion.  The  first  question  was,  of  course, 
the  amount  of  money  to  be  hazarded.  Mr.  Murray  had 
said  two  or  three  hundred  pounds,  and  it  was  finally  agreed 
that  ray  contribution  should  not  exceed  the  latter  sum.  I 
had  also  promised  to  make  inquiries  respecting  printer, 
publishing  offices,  contributors,  etc.  The  first  matter  was 
easily  disposed  of.  I  obtained  an  estimate  from  Messrs. 
Robson  &  Sons,  with  whom  I  had  become  connected  in 
the  year  1860  as  printers  of  Temple  Bar,  by  whom  every 
novel  of  mine,  with  the  exception  of  one,  had  been  printed 
since.  A  publisher  and  publishing  -  oflice  were  found 
through  the  medium  of  Mr.  Goodlake,  for  so  many  years 
the  printer  of  the  Times,  who  recommended  me  to  apply 
to  Mr.  Arnold  of  86  Fleet  Street,  whom  I  found  occupy- 
ing the  very  premises  in  which  twenty  years  previously 
my  first  book  had  been  issued  by  Mr.  Bogue.  As  to  the 
question  of  contributors,  I  made  a  mental  list  of  persons 
I  intended  to  apply  to,  but  I  thought  that  could  well 
stand  over  until  we  had  made  some  further  progress  in 
our  arrangements.  Meanwhile,  requested  by  ]Mr.  Murray 
to  find  a  title,  I  proposed  T/ie  World:  A  Journal  for  Men 
and  Women,  which  he  immediately  accepted. 

When  I  returned  to  Paris  I  found  Grenville  Murray 
more  enthusiastic  than  ever  on  the  subject  of  our  proposed 
enterprise.  "  Together,"  he  was  pleased  to  say,  "  we  could 
carry  anything  before  us."     There  was  to  be  no  "jour- 


432  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

nalese,"  sucli  as  was  to  be  found  in  every  newspaper ;  al- 
ways to  be  fresh,  original,  and  piquant.  We  had  gone 
into  the  question  of  finance,  and  thought  that  a  capital  of 
five  hundred  pounds  would  be  quite  enough  to  start  with: 
this  was  to  be  cut  up  by  two  equal  contributions  on  his 
part  and  mine  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  and  the 
result  was  to  be  our  joint  property.  As  to  the  question  of 
editorship,  that  could  only  be  settled  in  one  way.  It  was 
impossible  for  him  to  come  to  England,  where  the  paper 
was  to  be  published,  and  therefore  it  must  be  edited  by 
me.  "  You  are  to  be  a  despot,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  said, 
pleasantly,  "  with  whole,  sole,  undivided  control."  I  re- 
member smiling  as  he  said  this,  for  though  I  was  consider- 
ably the  younger,  yet  he  was,  or  seemed  to  be,  much  more 
sanguine,  and  I  thought  it  a  good  oj^portunity  to  say  some- 
thing which  had  been  in  my  mind.  I  told  him  then  that 
while  I  had  long  believed  him  to  be  the  ablest  journalist 
in  Europe,  I  was  almost  convinced  of  one  thing — that  the 
ill-treatment,  as  he  imagined,  he  had  received  at  the  hands 
of  Lord  Derby  and  some  of  the  subordinate  officials  in 
Downing  Street  had  had  such  an  effect  upon  his  mind  that 
it  was  as  impossible  for  him  to  keep  damaging  allusions  to 
them  out  of  his  writings  as  it  was  Mr.  Dick  to  keep  "  men- 
tion of  King  Charles  the  First's  head  "  out  of  his  memo- 
rial. I  took  occasion  to  say  that  persistent  and  reiterated 
attacks  of  the  kind  would  naturally  militate  against  the 
success  of  the  new  venture  in  certain  important  quarters, 
and  I  implored  him  to  guard  against  falling  into  the  snare. 
Murray  laughed  good-naturodl}'  at  the  "Mr.  Dick"  allu- 
sion, declaring  that  all  ill-feeling  against  the  persons  I 
have  named  had  died  out,  and  that  he  was  perfectly  to  be 
trusted  in  the  matter ;  but,  he  added,  even  if  he  were  to 
1)0  seduced  into  such  a  lapse,  my  full  powers  as  editor 
would  enable  mo  to  deal  dosjiotically  with  the  affair. 

All  these  various  points  duly  taken  into  consideration 
and  discussed,  we  had,  we  thought,  sufficient  material  for 
an  agreement,  which  was  sketched  out,  in  which  they 
wore  all  enumerated,  with  the  further  proviso  that  in 
llio  event  of  any  serious  difference  of  opinion  in  which 
the  condiH-f  of  the  paper  was  involved,  arising  between 


"THE  WORLD."  433 

the  two  persons,  reference  should  be  made  to  an  arbi- 
trator, either  Mr.  W.  H.  Wills,  formerly  of  Household 
Worcls^  or  Mr.  J.  R.  Robinson  being  requested  to  act  in 
that  capacity,  the  arbitrator's  decision  to  be  final. 

The  value  of  this  proviso  was  soon  proved.  After  a 
few  weeks  Mr.  Murray,  always  writing  splendidly,  began 
to  attack  his  foes  Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Bidwell  of  the 
Foreign  Office.  I  ventured  a  remonstrance,  and  the  at- 
tacks ceased,  to  be  resumed  very  shortly  with  increased 
virulence.  Exercising  my  power,  I  struck  out  some  strong 
expressions ;  Mr.  Murray  protested.  A  very  strong  article 
I  suppressed.  Then  ensued  a  long  correspondence ;  and 
as  the  impossibility  of  continuing  the  "  dual  control  " 
seemed  to  be  evident,  we  agreed  that  Mr.  Murray  should 
retire  from  the  partnership,  the  amount  to  be  paid  him 
for  his  original  advance  (£350)  being,  in  the  then  circum- 
stances and  prospects  of  the  Journal,  assessed  by  a  pro- 
fessional valuer  at  £3000.  From  the  beginning  of  1875 
The  World  has  been  wholly  mine,  and  under  my  sole 
management. 

When  I  returned  to  England  I  took  back  with  me  a 
draft  prospectus  of  the  new  paper,  the  whole  of  which, 
with  the  exception  of  one  paragraph,  was  Grenville  Mur- 
ray's idea.     I  subjoin  it: 

"THE  WORLD:  A  JOURNAL  FOR  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 
"Every  Wednesday  ' price  Sixpence. 

"  Some  men  of  letters  purpose  to  create  a  periodical  of  a  sort  hitherto 
unknown  in  this  great  country. 

"  They  expect  an  ample  remuneration  for  their  work,  and  will  give  the 
public  solid  value  for  its  money. 

"  The  price  of  the  phenomenon  now  introduced  to  society  will  be  six- 
pence. 

"  The  World  will  be  an  amusing  chronicle  of  current  history,  divested  of 
the  nonsense  which  has  hitherto  stuck  hke  treacle  to  public  business,  so 
that  apparently  it  could  not  be  touched  with  clean  hands. 

"  The  World  will  contain  a  summary  of  everything  worth  notice  in  liter- 
ature, art,  and  society ;  and  will,  for  a  just  consideration,  print  advertise- 

*  My  selection  of  Wednesday  as  day  of  publication  was  very  lucky ;  for 
on  Saturday,  the  alternative  day,  Messrs.  Smith's  book-stalls  are  entirely 
occupied. 

19 


434  FIFTY   YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

ments  in  a  new  and  striking  form.  Politics,  and  even  Parliamentary  pro- 
ceedings deserving  of  attention,  will  sometimes  be  discussed  from  any  point 
of  view  from  which  there  is  a  clearer  prospect  or  less  of  fog  than  is  usual. 
They  will  be  good-naturedly  removed  from  that  queer  eminence  to  which 
they  have  been  hoisted  by  official  vanity  and  departmental  advertisements  ; 
they  will  be  restored  in  safety  to  the  proper  place  which  good-sense  as- 
signs them  in  the  concerns  of  nations ;  they  will  be  made  intelligible  to 
rational  persons,  over  whose  minds  at  present  they  have  little  authority 
and  less  influence. 

"  An  Acrostic  will  be  composed  weekly  to  promote  female  education, 
and  be  printed  conjointly  with  an  elegant  Essay  suitable  for  mature  ladies 
of  quality. 

"  The  World  will  publish  that  rarest  of  all  things — candid  reviews  of 
good  books,  good  plays,  good  pictures,  and  discoveries  in  science,  treat- 
ing them  as  the  natural  expression  of  the  highest  form  of  intellect,  and 
actually  bestowing  honest  praise  on  living  genius. 

"  The  World  will  give  the  latest  intelligence  from  the  Turf,  the  Hunt- 
ing-field, and  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  will  vastly  surprise  those  who  are 
wont  to  look  upon  Sport  and  City  in  their  conventional  aspect. 

"  The  World  will  publish  entertaining  Fictions  without  any  admixture 
of  twaddle ;  and  the  first  of  its  serial  tales  will  be  a  Novel  of  Society,  by 
a  New  Writer,  born  in  Grosvenor  Square,  expressly  to  delight  Belgravia. 

"  The  World  has  pleasant  tidings  for  the  Court  and  the  Aristocracy.  It 
will  receive  contributions  from  people  of  rank  who  know  anything  worth 
communicating,  and  who  can  write  a  legible  hand.  The  spelling  and  gram- 
mar of  nobility  will  be  corrected,  and  manuscripts,  when  done  with,  will 
be  discreetly  buried  at  midnight  during  a  thunder-storm,  in  order  that  the 
capital  sin  of  possessing  intellect  may  never  be  brought  home  to  any- 
body. 

"  Fair  in  its  criticism,  plain  in  its  language,  honorable  in  its  intentions, 
written  throughout  by  gentlemen  and  scholars — such  will  be  The  World, 
which  is  now  preseated  to  the  public  as  an  experiment  wholly  new  in 
journalism. 

"Office  :  86  Fleet  Street,  E.  C." 

Tliis  prospectus  I  had  at  once  printed  and  circulated 
among  tlie  various  newKpaper  offices  and  such  people  as 
I  thought  interested  by  it.  It  was  generally  voted  very 
clever  and  extremely  impudent.  The  prospectus  was  also 
inserted  as  an  advertisement  in  the  Saturday  Review,  the 
Spectator,  and  a  few  other  journals,  but  I  do  not  think  I 
have  ever  ))ai(l  more  than  seventy  pounds  for  advertising 
77/6  World  fnnn  its  first  number  to  the  present  day. 

Now  as  to  the  contributors.  Some  six  or  seven  years 
previously,  a  young  gentleman  named  Escott,  fresh  from 
Oxford,  had  called  ii|Mm  inc  at  the  Post-office  with   a  let- 


"THE   WORLD."  435 

ter  of  introduction  from  Tom  Hood,  and  had  intimated 
his  desire  for  furnishing  me  with  some  articles  for  Temple 
Bar.  These  articles  had  been  written  and  approved  of ; 
and  though  I  had  not  seen  much  of  my  young  friend  for 
some  time,  I  had  sufficient  remembrance  of  his  special 
gifts  to  induce  me  to  beg  for  his  collaboration  in  my  new 
venture.  I  had  also  sent  a  prospectus  to  Mr.  Henry  La- 
bouchere,  with  whom  I  had  a  slight  acquaintance,  and 
whose  services  as  a  literary  free-lance  might,  I  thought, 
be  utilized.  Some  days  after  I  saw  Mr.  Labouchere  on  the 
Cup  Day  at  Ascot,  seated  on  the  box  of  a  coach.  I  asked 
him  if  he  had  heard  from  me,  and  he  said,  "  Oh  yes,"  add- 
ing that  "  he  thought  the  programme  was  very  funny." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  will  you  help  us  in  carrying  it  out — 
will  you  be  one  of  us?" 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say,"  he  replied,  "  that  you  actu- 
ally mean  to  start  a  paper  of  the  kind  sot  forth?" 

I  told  him  most  assuredly  we  did,  and  that  we  wanted 
his  assistance.  He  laughed  more  than  ever,  and  said  he 
would  let  me  know  about  that.  A  few  days  after  I  heard 
from  him,  pi'oposing  to  write  a  series  of  City  articles, 
which  he  actually  commenced  in  the  second  number. 

Among  my  earlier  contributors  were  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill 
and  the  Earl  of  Winchilsea,  who  through  the  first  three 
months  of  our  existence  obliged  me  with  some  excellent 
articles  on  racing  and  the  turf  generally;  M.  Camille  Bar- 
rere,  an  old  acquaintance  of  mine,  now  French  Minister  in 
Egypt,  then  an  exile  in  England,  a  man,  as  he  has  subse- 
quently shown,  of  great  ability,  who  writes  our  language 
with  as  much  precision  as  he  speaks  it.  His  first  article,  on 
the  "  Communists  in  London,"  was  full  of  novel  and  inter- 
esting information.  Valuable  assistance  was  also  received 
from  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton,  who  contributed  to  the  first  num- 
ber an  article  entitled  "Jezebel  cL  la  mode^''  written  very 
much  in  her  well-known  "  Gii-l  of  the  Period"  style;  F.  I. 
Scudamore,  who  from  our  commencement  almost  to  the  day 
of  his  death  was  a  most  welcome  contributor,  and  whose 
"  Songs  of  the  Session "  are  among  his  very  best  work. 
Mr.  W.  H.  Lucy,  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes,  and  Mr.  J.  Comyns 
Carr  soon  rallied  to  the  standard.     Mr.  Hermann  Mcri- 


436  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

vale's  contributions  were  in  verse,  though  he  afterwards 
sent  me  a  series  of  prose  articles;  and  Mr.  Mortimer 
Collins,  completely  seizing  upon  the  ideas  intended  to  be 
conveyed  in  the  prospectus,  distilled  them  for  the  first 
number  into  a  sparkling  set  of  verses,  which  I  am  tempted 
to  give : 

"THE  WORLD,  THE  FLESH,  AND  THE  DEVIL. 

"a  trilogy. 

"  Lo,  here  our  banner  unfurled, 

We  are  ready  for  tourney  or  revel ; 
What  in  the  world  says  the  World 

Of  the  World  and  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil? 

"THE  WORLD. 
"The  World !     God  made  it,  and  fair  it  is; 
Ah,  why  do  we  spoil  it — why  ? 
It  is  not  merely  the  splutter  of  fizz, 

Or  the  lurid  Hght  of  a  wicked  eye ; 
'Tis  the  world  of  men  who  are  true  and  strong. 

The  world  of  women  both  sweet  and  fair; 
And  the  men  of  the  world  who  sway  the  throng 
Breathe  healthful  air. 

"  The  World !  where  Science  and  Art  alert 

Have  ample  space  of  elbow-room  ; 
Where  Fashion,  the  gay  minx,  comes  to  flirt, 

Chasing  away  all  forms  of  gloom  ; 
Where  Genius  easily  finds  his  way. 

And  leads  the  life  of  the  rapid  hour; 
For  the  World  is  wiser  grown  to-day, 

And  bends  to  power. 

"Beautiful  World  !  we  will  mirror  you — 

Catch  every  beauty,  each  gay  caprice, 
The  ladies'  latest  changeable  hue. 

The  fanciful  follies  that  cannot  cease. 
Political  epigram,  opera-song, 

The  poet's  madness,  the  bride's  soft  tear: 
All  these  things  to  the  World  belong — 

You'll  find  them  here. 

"THE  FLESH. 
"Youth,  tell  thy  dream  :  is  it  indeed  a  glory 
To  waste  thy  appetite  on  husks  of  swine? 
Read  in  an  ancient  book  an  old,  old  story; 

True,  though  some  cavillers  dccni  it  not  divine. 


"THE  WORLD."  437 

"  Youth,  in  this  day  of  fastness,  wildly  fast  is ; 
The  model  editor  who  writes  for  youth 
Follows  (a  long  way  off)  Ecclesiastes, 
And  modestly  attempts  to  preach  the  truth. 

"  He  says, '  Although  in  thee  the  innate  sin  bum 
Which  bother'd  me  and  many  other  wights, 
Don't  spend  your  mornings  gloating  over  Swinburne, 
And  don't  stay  out  so  very  late  o'  nights. 

"  '  You  haven't  got  Jack  Falstaff's  sterling  sinew ; 
These  weaker  days  have  made  you  weakling  cubs : 
If  to  stay  up  to  midnight  you  continue, 
I'll  hint  to  Mr.  Cross  to  close  the  Clubs.' 

"  Thus  the  new  Solomon :  cxperto  crede. 

His  prototype  was  caught  in  many  a  mesh ; 
Youth,  if  you'd  not  be  permanently  seedy. 
Eschew  the  gross  temptations  of  the  flesh. 

"  THE  DEVIL. 
"  The  Devil  of  old  was  Lucifer, 

Bearer  of  light  to  the  central  Throne ; 
He  set  rebellious  fire  astir ; 
He  fell  with  a  groan. 

"  Now  Lucifer  seems  to  have  had  his  day ; 
He's  out  of  the  firm,  and  takes  his  ease, 
And  his  junior  partner  comes  in  to  play— 
Mephistopheles. 

"  The  Devil  who  simpers  and  sneers  and  grins 
Reviews  in  the  Saturday^  does  his  worst 
To  make  great  crimes  of  our  smaller  sins — 
A  Fiend  accurst. 

"  Let  us  kick  him  out,  with  an  easy  laugh, 

From  the  rooms  where  our  books  and  friends  we  meet. 
And  our  afternoons  of  classic  chaff, 
Make  life  complete. 

"  We'll  have  our  picnics  and  kettledrums. 
And  lazy  loiterings  under  the  trees: 
Be  off,  poor  fiend,  to  the  World's  back  slums, 
Mephistopheles." 

When  we  were  eight  months  old  a  powerful  reinforce- 
ment came  to  me  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Henry  W.  Lucy, 
whose   admirable   parhamentary   sketches,  "Under    the 


438  FIFTY  YEAKS  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

Clock,"  instantly  commanded  attention.  For  a  year  the 
dramatic  criticisms  were  my  work,  but  as  soon  as  Mr, 
Dutton  Cook  was  free  from  the  engagement  which  he 
then  held  for  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  he  was  good  enough 
to  relieve  me  of  the  duties,  which  he  discharged  until  his 
lamented  death  just  twelve  months  ago.  The  first  serial 
novel  in  The  World,  "  A  Decree  Nisi,"  was  written  by 
me;  my  successors  have  been  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins,  Messrs. 
Rice  and  Besant,  with  "The  Golden  Butterfly,"  perhaps, 
as  their  c^e/-c?'awyre.  Miss  Braddon,  Major  Hawley  Smart, 
Mrs.  Forrester,  and  others.  The  World,  too,  supplies  the 
only  instance  in  my  memory  in  which  a  journal  was  hon- 
ored by  the  Times  with  the  quotation  of  an  article  in  full, 
the  name  of  the  publication  being  given  with  a  couple  of 
laudatory  lines  of  introduction.  The  article  in  question 
was  called  "  Modern  Cavalry,"  and  was  written  for  me  by 
Colonel  Valentine  Baker. 

But  I  am  unduly  advancing  my  story.  The  first  num- 
ber of  The  World  appeared  on  the  8th  July,  18V4,  and  was 
not  received  with  any  strongly  emphasized  welcome.  Its 
sale,  indeed,  was  very  limited,  and  its  advertisements  were 
practically  nil.  Mr.  Grenville  Murray  had  a  strong  belief 
in  the  reclame  system  so  common  in  France,  by  which  an 
advertiser's  name  and  object  for  advertising  are  judi- 
ciously mixed  up  with  a  pointed  anecdote  or  telling  sketch. 
He  was  most  anxious  that  this  system  should  be  intro- 
duced by  us,  and  it  was  accordingly  tried,  but  proved  the 
direst  failure.  The  British  commercial  interests  failed  to 
see  the  point  of  the  joke,  and  looked  upon  the  mixing  up 
of  practical  trade  announcements  and  insinuating  fiction 
as  "  barefaced  impudence  "  and  "  regular  humbug,"  so  that 
after  a  trial  of  two  or  three  weeks  they  were  abandoned. 
But  no  other  advertisers  came  in  their  places,  and  for 
several  weeks  the  sale  of  the  numbers  was  infinitesimally 
small.  At  tlic  same  time  all  judges  of  journalism  allowed 
the  now  asj.irant  to  be  bright,  clever,  and  entirely  original. 
Mr.  Grenville  Murray's  large  knowledge  of  men  and  cities 
found  scope  in  his  "Portraits  in  Oil,"  and  in  his  articles 
commenting  on  current  events  abroad  and  at  home;  Mr. 
Escott's  political  articles  were  acknowledged  to  be  pointed 


"THE    WORLD."  439 

and  incisive;  while  Mr.  Labouchere  was  dealing  with  City 
matters  in  a  way  in  which  they  had  never  been  dealt  be- 
fore, and  ruthlessly  attacking  and  denouncing  Mr.  Samp- 
son, the  City  editor  of  the  Times,  whose  position  and  virtue 
had  hitherto  been  considered  impregnable.  All  these  feat- 
ures, with  the  excellence  of  the  papei  and  printing  and 
general  appearance  of  the  journal,  received  due  apprecia- 
tion from  our  provincial  confrhres  and  the  "  trade ;"  but 
as  yet  they  seemed  to  have  made  no  impression  on  the 
public.  We  were  in  the  desperate  position  of  having  a 
good  article  to  sell  without  the  power  of  making  that  fact 
known;  nine-tenths  of  the  newspaper-buying  public  had 
absolutely  no  knowledge  of  our  existence;  and  although 
my  pai'tner  and  I  had  each  subscribed  another  hundred 
pounds  to  the  capital  fund,  a  couple  of  thousand  pounds 
would  not  have  been  too  much  to  have  expended  in  judi- 
cious advertising. 

At  last,  and  just  in  the  nick  of  time,  we  obtained  the 
requisite  public  notice,  and  without  paying  anything  for 
it.  A  stock-broker,  and  a  member  of  the  Stock  Exchange, 
who  conceived  himself  likely  to  be  attacked  for  certain 
practices  by  Mr,  Labouchere  in  the  City  article,  threatened 
to  horsewhip  that  gentleman  should  such  observations 
appear,  and  Mr.  Labouchere  had  the  would-be  assailant 
brought  before  the  Lord  Mayor  for  threatening  to  commit 
a  breach  of  the  peace.  The  case  was  really  a  trivial  one, 
and  it  was  settled  by  the  defendant  being  bound  over  in 
sureties  for  his  good  behavior.  But  it  had  been  argued 
at  full  length,  each  side  being  represented  by  eminent  law- 
yers. Mr.  Thesiger,  Q.C.,  afterwards  a  Lord  Justice  of 
Appeal,  appeared  for  the  defendant,  and  Mr.  George  Lewis 
for  Mr.  Labouchere.  A  great  deal  was  said  about  The 
World,  and  its  determination  to  purge  Capel  Court  of  all 
engaged  in  iniquitous  dealings,  and  all  that  was  said  was 
reported  at  length  in  the  daily  papers,  and  verbatim  in  our 
next  issue.  The  effect  was  instantaneous  ;  the  circulation 
rose  at  once,  and  the  next  week  showed  a  very  large  in- 
crease of  advertisements. 

More  satisfactory  still  was  the  result  of  another  legal 
ease.     A  series  of  articles  exposing  the  tricks  and  frauds 


440  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  LONDON   LIFE. 

of  West  End  usurers,  stripping  them  of  their  fancy  titles, 
and  giving  their  real  names  and  occupations,  had  creat- 
ed a  considerable  amount  of  interest,  and  led  to  much 
correspondence  between  The  World  office  and  parents 
and  others  in  charge  of  youth.  Two  of  the  fraternity, 
who  it  is  not  now  necessary  to  name,  instituted  proceed- 
ings against  The  World  for  libel.  The  case  came  on  in 
the  Guildhall  police-court  before  Alderman  Sir  Thomas 
Gabriel,  the  plaintiff  being  represented  by  Mr.  Montagu 
Williams  and  Mr.  Douglas  Straight,  while  Mr.  George 
Lewis  appeared  for  the  journal.  Mr.  Montagu  Williams 
had  not  held  the  Treasury  briefs  in  those  days,  and  was 
much  better  in  defence,  to  which  he  was  more  accus- 
tomed, than  attack,  while  Mr.  Douglas  Straight  had 
nothing  to  do  but  shake  his  head  in  a  Lord  Burleigh-like 
manner  at  the  impressive  observations  of  his  leader. 

The  case  was  adjourned ;  and  on  the  second  day  Mr. 
Sergeant  Parry  struggled  earnestly  and  impressively,  but 
without  the  least  chance  of  success,  to  convince  the  pre- 
siding magistrate  and  the  public,  which  thronged  the 
court,  with  the  sense  of  our  iniquity.  On  the  contrary, 
Mr.  George  Lewis's  keen  cross-examination  had  dragged 
forth  the  disclosure  of  such  damaging  facts  on  behalf  of 
the  plaintiffs  that  it  seemed  to  be  generally  admitted  that 
in  commenting  on  their  proceedings  I'he  World  deserved 
encouragement  rather  than  reprobation.  The  case  was 
dismissed,  and  we  left  the  court  amid  hearty  cheers  from 
the  ])orsons  who  were  assembled  outside. 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  attractive  features  of  The 
Wo7'ld  is  the  series  of  "  Celebrities  at  Home,"  of  which 
nearly  four  hundred  spcciniens  have  already  ai)})earecl,  and 
which  seems  to  be  practically  inexhaustible.  Granting 
the  correctness  of  Sir  Henry  Taylor's  assertion,  that  "  the 
world  knows  nothing  of  its  greatest  men,"  liad  always 
been  my  idea,  and  I  thought  that  an  introduction  might 
be  acce])table  to  both  parties.  The  silly  idea  that  any 
system  of  eHj)ionage  would  be  practised,  that  admission 
into  houses  would  be  duly  obtained,  and  that  there  would 
be  a  general  disclosure  of  skeletons  in  cu])l)oards,  was  at 
once  set  at  rest.     By  the  regulations  laid  down  and  in- 


"THE  WORLD."  441 

sisted  upon  from  the  first,  that  no  person  should  be  made 
the  subject  of  one  of  these  articles  without  his  or  her 
consent  having  been  previously  obtained,  and  without  full 
liberty,  if  they  wished  it,  to  inspect  the  article  in  proof 
before  it  was  published — with  these  safeguards,  and  with 
a  jealous  care  that  the  spirit  with  which  they  had  been 
written  should  always  be  maintained,  it  appears  to  me 
that,  for  the  historian  of  the  future,  these  articles  will 
supply  a  want  which  must  have  been  keenly  felt  by  the 
Macaulays  and  the  Froudes;  will  enable  our  descendants 
to  picture  to  themselves  all  the  exact  social  surroundings 
and  daily  lives  and  labors,  the  habits  and  manners,  the 
dress  and  appearance,  of  the  men  of  mark  in  the  present 
day,  such  as  is  inadequately  afforded  even  by  the  diaries 
of  Evelyn  and  Pepys,  or  the  letters  of  Walpole.  In  these 
articles  are  discharged  the  functions  of  a  Boswell,  with 
a  thousand  patrons  instead  of  one ;  and  as  the  wondrous 
biography  written  by  the  Laird  of  Auchinleck  interests 
us  not  less  from  being  the  record  of  Johnson's  sledge- 
hammer dicta  or  profound  philosophical  oi3inions,  as 
the  description  of  his  daily  life  and  personal  habits,  the 
strange  household  nourished  by  his  charity,  his  tricks  of 
post-touch  and  tea-drinking,  and  general  method  of  toss- 
ing and  curing  all  those  differing  from  him  in  opinion,  so 
I  think  it  will  be  found  that  the  historian  of  the  future 
will  turn  aside  from  volumes  of  Hansard  and  volumes  of 
polemical  journals  to  find  closer  information  about  his 
heroes  in  these  descriptive  essays. 

With  the  exception  of  our  Most  Gracious  Majesty,  there 
is  scarcely  a  j^ersonage  of  importance  in  the  present 
day  who  does  not  find  a  niche  in  this  series.  On  apply- 
ing to  H.  R.  H.  the  Prince  of  Wales,  intimating  that  the 
task  of  sketching  him  in  his  Sandringham  home  would,  if 
permission  were  granted,  be  confided  to  Mr.  Archibald 
Forbes,  the  Prince  accorded  immediate  consent,  with  the 
remark  that  he  had  pleasant  personal  acquaintance  with 
Mr,  Forbes,  and  could  well  trust  himself  in  his  hands. 
On  the  appearance  of  the  article,  his  Royal  Highness 
was  pleased  to  express  his  full  approval  of  it.  Intro- 
duced by  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan  to  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh, 


442  FIFTY  YEAES  OF  LONDON  LIFE. 

I  received  his  Royal  Highness's  gracious  permission  for 
his  inchision  in  the  series;  and  the  Duke  of  Cambridge 
was  also  good  enough  to  allow  himself  to  sit  as  a  subject. 

The  leading  members  of  nearly  every  reigning  family 
in  Europe,  presidents  and  statesmen  of  the  French  Re- 
publics, army  and  navy  officers,  poets,  peers,  publicists, 
leaders  in  all  kinds  of  sport,  members  of  the  Bar  and 
lights  of  the  pulpit,  owners,  jockeys,  and  trainers  of  race- 
horses, neaiiy  every  one  who  has  played  a  conspicuous 
part  in  the  world,  will  be  found  fully  described. 

More  than  ten  years  have  elapsed  since  The  World 
came  into  existence,  more  than  eight  since  its  unparal- 
leled success  was  assured.  The  causes  of  that  success  are 
easily  explained.  It  was  in  the  summer  of  18V4  that  the 
first  specimen  of  The  World  was  presented  to  the  public. 
If  the  prophets  had  been  true  it  would  have  been  very 
nearly  a  solitary  issue.  It  was  an  entirely  novel  experi- 
ment, and  for  this  reason  it  was  pronounced  to  be,  in  some 
quarters,  a  desperate  one.  Others,  again,  recognized  in 
it  a  return  to  the  vilest  usages  of  literary  antiquity,  and 
pronounced  that  the  spirit  of  the  Age  and  the  Satirist 
had  once  more  assumed  typographical  shape.  All,  or 
most,  of  tlie  critics  and  the  seers  were  agreed  that  our 
venture  had  not  in  it  a  month's  vitality ;  that  the  public 
would  resent  the  impertinence  of  its  articles,  its  para- 
graphs, and  its  methods  generally,  as  an  insult ;  that  it 
was  an  importation  of  the  worst  principles  of  American 
journalism  into  this  country  ;  and  that  it  was,  in  a  word, 
un-English.  But  four  weeks  passed  away  ;  we  gradually 
came  to  reckon  our  age  by  montlis  ;  none  of  the  sinister 
vaticinations  were  fulfilled.  As  a  matter  of  fact  TJie 
World  was  less  than  half  a  year  old  when  it  was  an  as- 
sured success. 

From  that  time  to  this  its  record  has  been  one  of  con- 
tinued, increasing,  and  confirmed  prosperity — a  record  on 
Avliicli,  however  gratifying  it  may  be  to  myself,  my  read- 
ers might  fairly  charge  me  wi(h  tedious  egotism  if  I  were 
particularly  to  dwell.  7Vtc  World,  in  fact,  whicli  was  first 
pronounced  a  mischievous  and  |)erisl»able  excrescence,  is 
now  an  institution.     Instead  of  a  print  that  English  socie- 


"THE  WORLD."  443 

ty  would  never  tolerate,  would  trample  underfoot,  would 
cause  to  be  burned  by  the  common  hangman,  it  is  a  jour- 
nal as  necessary  to  society  in  the  capital  and  in  the  prov- 
inces, in  town  and  country,  at  home  and  abroad,  within 
and  outside  the  four  seas,  as  those  vast  broad-sheets  which 
are  the  contemporary  chroniclers  of  humanity  and  its  do- 
ings from  day  to  day.  Much  of  the  secret  of  its  success 
is  to  be  found  in  its  loyalty  to  the  full  scope  of  its  title. 
I  have  never  been  unmindful  of  the  wants  and  interests 
of  every  section  of  the  English  community.  True  to  its 
name,  it  has  addressed  itself  urbi  et  orhi.  "  A  Journal  for 
Men  and  Women,"  there  has  been  infused  into  its  columns 
an  element  of  human  interest  to  which  it  had  been  previ- 
ously supposed  that  women  at  least  were  indifferent.  For 
the  first  time  ladies — who,  in  publications  which  claimed  to 
consult  feminine  idiosyncrasies  exclusively,  were  hitherto 
obliged  to  be  content  with  recipes  for  cookery,  hints  for 
illness,  precepts  for  the  nurture  and  training  of  infants, 
patterns  for  needlework,  and  mild  facetiae,  culled  from 
the  records  of  district  visitors  —  now  found  a  journal 
which,  proclaiming  that  it  would  not  ignore  them,  inter- 
preted their  real  wants,  and  supplied  them  too. 

It  is  this  adaptation  of  its  contents  to  the  necessities  of 
the  time,  and  to  the  various  conditions  of  society  ;  it  is 
the  actuality  which  has  refused  mechanically  to  accept 
purely  conventional  estimates  of  public  feeling,  that  has 
enabled  Tlie  World  to  secure,  and  then  to  retain,  the  fa- 
vor of  an  immense  body  of  readers.  The  letters  which 
reach  me  from  every  part  of  the  world  convey  the  pleas- 
ant consciousness  that  The  World  succeeds,  in  giving  a 
social  and  political  record,  whose  truth  is  as  instinctively 
recognized  at  the  Antipodes  as  within  the  sound  of  Big 
Ben.  There  is  no  quarter  of  the  globe  which  the  paper 
fails  to  penetrate,  and  the  reason  is  that  each  successive 
number  as  it  appears  provides  a  faithful  epitome,  a  genu- 
ine concentration  and  amalgam  of  what  those  of  our  coun- 
trymen and  countrj' women,  the  officers  and  civilians,  their 
wives  and  daughters  living  under  a  foreign  sun,  want  to 
know ;  of  what  they  would  actually  hear  and  see  if  they 
were  at  home. 


444  FIFTY  YEARS   OF   LONDON   LIFE. 

This  is  a  difficult  and  frequently,  from  the  subject-mat- 
ter with  which  it  is  necessary  to  deal,  a  delicate  task.  It 
must  be  well,  wholesomely,  and  carefully  done,  or  it  had 
better  not  be  done  at  all.  That  the  public  appreciate  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  performed  is  shown  by  the  excep- 
tional support  given  to  the  efforts  in  the  direction  pointed 
out. 


THE  END. 


1 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 

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